2 Samuel & 1 Chronicles: Counting Men, Part 2

(If you would like to read about this week’s Torah portion, Naso, you might try Naso: Divine Verdict or Naso: Raising a Blessing or Naso: Distanced by Hair. This post is part 2 of my recent post Bemidbar, Ki Tisa, & Pinchas: Counting Men, Part 1.)

The first three times God orders a census of Israelite men in the Hebrew Bible, there is a reasonable reason. The fourth time, the God character seems irrational.

The first census, in the portion Ki Tisa in Exodus, takes place when the Israelites are donating materials to construct the new sanctuary. Every man age 20 and up is counted and required to give a half-shekel of silver to the project, regardless of his wealth, tribe, or standing. (Women and children are not included because they do not own anything in their own right.) The God who orders this census may be considering the psychology of the Israelite men, who learn that every man counts in the new centralized religion.1

Army of the Twelve Tribes, by Jan Luyken, ca. 1700

The second census, in the portion Bemidbar in Numbers, counts all Israelite men age 20 and up excepts the Levites, who will serve as religious functionaries. The rest of the men are mustered for military service, now that the people are about to march north and conquer Canaan. Although God promises to make the conquest easy, an army is still necessary for operations on the ground. This census is ordered by a practical God.2

The third census, in the portion Pinchas in Numbers, is even more practical than the second one. The Israelites have spent 40 years in the wilderness because they refused to enter Canaan the first time. Now they are preparing to cross the Jordan River and do the job, so God orders a census that will provide information for both military campaigns and the allotment of land once Canaan is vanquished.3

But the fourth and final time God orders a census, the purpose is not clear.

A pretext and a satan

The Israelites occupy most of Canaan in the two books of Samuel, but they fight war after war with neighboring countries. David is the king of all Israel and Judah for 33 years,4 and he is responsible for these recurrent wars. His men do battle with the Philistine city-states to the west and the kingdom of Ammon to the northeast, and also fight in a civil war between King David and his son Avshalom (“Absalom” in English). David’s men always win.

The second book of Samuel ends with miscellany from late in King David’s reign: the final psalm David writes,5 some lists of his chief warriors and their exploits,6 and a curious story about a census and a threshing-floor., which begins:

And again God’s anger burned against Israel, and [God] incited David against them, saying: “Go, number Israel and Judah!” (2 Samuel 24:1)

No reason is given for God’s anger. Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz speculated that God’s anger is a delayed reaction to “the twenty thousand casualties of the war that took place in the wake of Avshalom’s rebellion.”7

Robert Alter suggested:

“Perhaps, indeed, there is no discernible reason for God’s fury against Israel. The God of this story has the look of acting arbitrarily, exacting terrible human costs in order to be placated. Unlike the deity of 1 Samuel-2 Samuel 20, He is decidedly an interventionist God, pulling the human actors by strings, and He may well be a capricious God, here ‘inciting’ David to carry out a census that will only bring grief to the people.”8

The first book of Chronicles retells the story of King David’s unfortunate census, and begins with a satan instead of an angry God.

Then a satan stood against Israel, and incited David to number Israel. (1 Chronicles 21:1)

satan (שָׂטָן) = accuser, adversary.

A satan is sometimes a human adversary in the Hebrew Bible.9 But the bible also uses the word satan to describe divine adversaries. When God is angry at Bilam’s decision to go to Moab and try to curse the Israelites, God sends a divine messenger who stands in the middle of the road as a satan.10

The book of Job begins by describing Iyov (“Job” in English) as a virtuous man who reveres God. Next the “sons of God”, including the satan, present themselves to the God called Y-H-V-H. (The “sons of God” are either remnants from an ancient Canaanite myth, or borrowed from the Persian idea that the creator god made divine entities called sons and daughters. Job was written after Judea became part of the Persian Empire.) When God calls Iyov (Job) the most upright and God-fearing man on earth, the satan tempts God into testing this man.11 The satan in this story seems to have been created by God in order to be an inner adversary, an aspect of an anthropomorphic God that questions God’s initial assumptions.

Perhaps God is also tempted by the satan in God’s own personality when God incites King David to conduct a useless census. Things are going too well for King David; he always wins. And the Israelite men might suddenly seem smug to the God character. Don’t they realize that God is responsible for all their victories?

David’s mistake

King David, however, does not know that God, or God’s satan, is looking for an excuse to kill some Israelite men. He just hears God say:

“Go, number Israel and Judah!” Then the king said to Yoav, commander of the army that was with him: “Please go to and fro among all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and count the people; then I will know the number of the people.”  (2 Samuel 24:1-2)

David believes God wants him to count how many men can be mustered for war. His army commander questions whether this census is necessary, but then he follows instructions, spending more than nine months touring the combined kingdom with his army officers.

But David’s heart struck him after he had numbered the people, and David said to God: “What I did was very wrong! And now, God, please overlook the iniquity of your servant, for I have been very foolish.” (2 Samuel 24:9-10)

What did David do wrong?

The traditional answer, which appears in the Talmud,12 is that David should have taken a half-shekel of silver from each man counted, as in the census that God ordered in the book of Exodus. The silver would be their “ransom” for their lives, and would be used by the Levites. This answer responds to a superstitious fear of being counted.

However, when God ordered the second and third censuses of Israelite men, the ones mustering men for the military, God did not ask each man to give a half-shekel. So I would argue that the half-shekel donation was not a general rule for censuses.

Ralbag wrote in the 14th century that David’s mistake was that he “placed his trust … upon his [having] many people. And it was not fitting that he should place his faith in many people … but rather only in God. For there is nothing that prevents Him from saving through the many or the few…”13

According to Steinsaltz, King David is thinking: “I have acted foolishly by taking an unnecessary census, which was merely an expression of pretension.”14

But I wonder if David’s mistake was that after he heard (or felt) God say “Go, number Israel and Judah!” he did not ask God a follow-up question. David is not a prophet, and never has a direct conversation with God.15 But three times while David is leading an outlaw band, he asks Evyatar, the priest who joined his band, to use a divining device called an eifod to learn God’ answers to David’s questions.16 After David has become the king of Israel and Judah, God speaks to the prophet Natan, who then speaks to King David.17

But David does not check with a priest or a prophet about his impression that God told him to take a census of Israel and Judah. He just sends out his army commander to go out and count all the men who can draw a sword.

If David had first asked a priest or prophet whether God really wanted a census and what it was for, what would God have answered? Was this version of the God character crabby enough to tell the truth: that the census was an excuse to kill some Israelites? Or would these questions have startled God into giving the situation more thought, leading to a change of heart?

David’s choice

After David prays to God to forgive him for counting the men, God speaks to the king’s seer, a type of lesser prophet, named Gad:

King David in the Presence of the Prophet Gad, by Luca Giordano, 17th c.

“Go and tell David: Thus said God: ‘Three things I have taken against you. Choose one of them, and I will do it to you.’” Then Gad came to David and told him, and said to him: “Shall a seven-year famine come upon you in the land? Or shall you flee from your foes for three months as they pursue you? Or shall there be three days of pestilence in your land? Now consider and perceive what word I will take back to the one who sent me.” (2 Samuel 24:11-12)

All three options give the God character in this story an excuse to kill some Israelite men.

And David said to Gad: “I am in great straits! Let it fall, please, into the hand of God, because [God’s] compassion is great. Don’t let me fall into the hand of humankind.” (2 Samuel 24:13)

King David, who believes in a compassionate God, rejects the option of pursuit by merciless enemy soldiers. He also rejects the option of a seven-year famine. According to Steinsaltz, he thinks: “Seven years of famine is too harsh a punishment, and the degree of its severity is also dependent to a certain extent upon the capabilities and compassion of human beings.”18

That leaves three days of pestilence, in which the number of people who die depends entirely on God.

And God put a pestilence in Israel … and 70,000 of the people died, from Dan to Beersheba. And the messenger [of God] extended its hand to destroy Jerusalem, but God had a change of heart regarding the evil, and said to the messenger who was destroying the people: “Too much! Now drop your hand!” The messenger of God was then beside the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite. (2 Samuel 24:15-16)

So the pestilence does not reach the City of David, the part of Jerusalem that David took from the Jebusites.

And Gad came to David that day and said to him: “Go up and set up an altar for God on the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite. (2 Samuel 24:17)

King David purchases the threshing-floor and Araunah’s oxen for fifty shekels, and burns offerings to God. Alter noted: “Although the temple is not explicitly mentioned, this acquisition of an altar site in Jerusalem is clearly placed here to prepare the way for the story of Solomon the temple builder that is to follow.”19

Two views of God

The God of the census in Exodus wants all Israelite men to be included in the project of building a place for God to dwell. The God of the two censuses in Numbers wants to provide practical information for the Israelite officers who will be organizing the conquest of Canaan. All three of these censuses are reasonable means for God to help the Israelites become a nation, a people invested in their religion and in the land they will eventually own.

But God orders the fourth census on a whim, in a fit of anger, and then uses King David’s obedient implementation as a pretext for killing thousands of Israelites. This capricious God creates a situation that uses David unfairly, delivers capital punishment without letting the victims know their crime, and fails as a deterrent for future crimes. The census in the second book of Samuel has no rational purpose. Literalists who consider God’s four censuses have to reconcile the rational and helpful God of the first three censuses with the irrational, petty, and careless God of the fourth census. The rest of us blame the scribe who wrote the fourth census story.

A census is not in itself a bad thing. But the purpose of a census can be helpful or harmful, even today. For example, counting people in voter registrations to determine redistricting can lead to fair representation, or to giving one political party an unfair advantage. In the United States, birth records can be used to determine when people are old enough to drive, to be drafted into the army, or to qualify for social security payments. In a country that scapegoats a subset of the population, information from various registrations can be used for unfair deportations, imprisonments, and even executions.

Whether a census will be used for good or bad purposes in the Hebrew Bible depends on a scribe’s view of God. Whether census information in our time is used for good or bad purposes depends on the government’s view of its own purpose.

  1. Bemidbar, Ki Tisa, & Pinchas: Counting Men, Part 1.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Ibid.
  4. 2 Samuel 5:3-5.
  5. 2 Samuel 23:1-7.
  6. 2 Samuel 23:8-39.
  7. Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, The Steinsaltz Nevi’im, Koren Publishers, 2019, as reprinted in www.sefaria.org.
  8. Robert Alter, Ancient Israel, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2013, p. 581.
  9. In the story of David, humans are called adversaries of other humans in 1 Samuel 29:4 and 2 Samuel 19:23.
  10. Numbers 22:22, 22:32. Also see Zechariah 3:1-2, in which God’s messenger and “the” satan argue about the fate of a high priest.
  11. Job 1:6-12.
  12. Talmud Bavli, Berakhot 62b.
  13. Ralbag, acronym of 14th-century Rabbi Levi ben Gershon, translation in www.sefaria.org.
  14. Steinsaltz, ibid.
  15. In 2 Samuel 7:18-29 King David sits in front of the ark and delivers a speech to God, but God does not answer.
  16. 1 Samuel 23:1-6, 23:9-12, and 30:7-8.
  17. 2 Samuel 7:4-17 and 12:1-14.
  18. Steinsaltz, ibid.
  19. Alter, p. 585.

Shavuot & Ezekiel: Magnificent Presence

The holiday of Shavuot begins this Thursday evening, and most Jewish congregations will celebrate it by holding Torah study late into the night. But in the Hebrew Bible, Shavuot is a pilgrimage festival in which people bring offerings to the temple in Jerusalem to celebrate the wheat harvest.

A harvest pilgrimage

And you must make for yourselves the pilgrimage of Shavuot, of the first fruits of the wheat harvest … all your males must be seen in front of the lord, Y-H-V-H, the God of Israel. (Exodus 34:22-23)

shavuot (שָּבֻעֺת) = weeks.

Shavuot falls seven weeks after the second day of Pesach (“Passover” in English). Pesach began as the first pilgrimage festival of the agricultural year, marking the beginning of the barley harvest. By Shavuot, the barley harvest has finished and it is time to harvest the wheat grown over the winter.

Seven shavuot you will count for yourself; from the beginning of the sickle in the standing grain you will begin counting seven weeks. Then you will make a pilgrimage festival, Shavuot, for Y-H-V-H, your God. You will give according to the voluntary offering of your hand; as Y-H-V-H, your God, blesses you. (Deuteronomy 16:9-10)

Although the book of Deuteronomy prescribes a Shavuot gift to the temple of whatever a man can reasonably afford, the book of Leviticus lists the animals that each head of household should bring to the altar. Men are also required to bring bread made from the new wheat.

From your settlements you must bring bread as a wave-offering, two [loaves of] two tenth-measures of fine flour they will be. You will bake them leavened, as first fruits to Y-H-V-H. (Leviticus 23:17)

Since only unleavened grain products could be burned on the altar, the two loaves of leavened (sourdough) bread are for the priest to eat after he has lifted them up in honor of God.

Shavuot without the temple

After the Romans razed the second temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E., the rabbis recast the three pilgrimage festivals so that people could still observe them without the temple. The holiday of Pesach became a home observance in which people eat matzah and tell the story of the exodus from Egypt. (See my post Pesach: A History.) This was an easy move because the book of Exodus already combined a ban on leavened bread with instructions for the Israelites about to leave Egypt. The holiday of Sukkot became a home observance in which people eat inside huts with roofs of branches, and enact a ritual to pray for sufficient rain during the winter. This followed naturally from the books of Leviticus and Nehemiah, which described the people constructing huts out of branches when they made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to make offerings and celebrate the last harvest of the year.1

But Shavuot is only mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in terms of bringing gifts to the temple. So the rabbis prescribed a different celebration after the temple was destroyed. Since hints in the book of Exodus indicate that the Israelites reach Mount Sinai roughly seven weeks after they leave Egypt, it made sense to claim that God’s revelation at Sinai and the “Ten Commandments” happened on Shavuot. A 3rd-century sage, Rabbi Elazar ben Pedat, is recorded in the Talmud as declaring that people should rejoice on Shavuot because that was “the day on which the Torah was given.” 2

If the Torah was given on Shavuot, why not spend the holiday studying Torah—especially the readings the rabbis assigned for that day?

The Torah reading for Shavuot became Exodus 19:1-20:23, which includes both the “Ten Commandments” and God’s mind-bending revelation at Mount Sinai. The accompanying haftarah reading from the prophets became Ezekiel 1:1-28 and 3:12, an account of the prophet’s own mind-bending vision of God. And since each of the pilgrimage festivals was matched with a book in the Ketuvim (“Writings”) section of the Hebrew Bible, the book to study on Shavuot became the book of Ruth, the story of a woman’s acceptance of the God of Israel.

Mount Sinai and Babylon

In the revelation at Mount Sinai, God manifests as fire and smoke on the mountain, and sounds of thunder and shofar blasts. The whole mountain trembles.3

And all the people were seeing the noises, and the torchlight, and sound of the shofar, and the mountain smoking. And the people saw, and they were shaken, and they stood at a distance. (Exodus 20:15)

Mount Sinai is called “the mountain of God” when Moshe (“Moses” in English) first meets God there at the burning bush.4 When the Israelites reach the mountain, they are terrified by God’s manifestation there. The following year, they create God’s portable tent-sanctuary at the foot of the mountain, and God manifests as cloud or fire above the tent at every campsite on the way to Canaan. When King Shlomoh (“Solomon” in English) builds a temple in Jerusalem, God manifests momentarily as a cloud inside it.5

But the prophet and priest Yechezkeil (“Ezekiel” in English) sees manifestations of God even in Babylon. While the Babylonian army was conquering Judah, it deported the city’s leading citizens to Babylon. Yechezkeil, who lives in a community of Israelite exiles in Babylon, anticipates that the Babylonians will soon take Jerusalem and destroy its temple (which they did in 587 B.C.E.). He also foresees that the Israelites will eventually return and build a new temple. But without the temple, how can anyone experience God? The prophet reports that on the bank of a canal in Babylon,

… the heavens opened and I saw visions of God. (Ezekiel 1:1)

And an explanatory note says:

… And it came upon him there: the hand of God. (Ezekiel 1:3)

At Mount Sinai the Israelites saw God as fire, smoke, flashing torchlight, and frightening sounds. Only the flashing fire is the same in Yechezkeil’s first vision.

I looked, and hey! A whirlwind came from the north, a huge cloud and flashing fire, and brightness all around it. And in the center of it, like an eyn of amber in the center of the fire. And in its center were also the likenesses of four living creatures.  And this was their appearance: they had the likeness of a human. But each one had four faces, and each of them had four wings. And each one’s legs were like a single straight leg, and each one’s feet were like a single calf’s foot. And [their] radiance looked like polished bronze. (Ezekiel 1:4-7)

eyn (עֵין) = eye; fountain, spring.

Perhaps the center of the divine cloud reminds the prophet of an eye that sees everything going on. Or perhaps is like a fountain of amber sparks.

Yechezkeil (Ezekiel) does not know what to call the four bizarre creatures, but he knows that they are alive, and that although they have some human characteristics, they are not human beings. They have no knee joints because they never sit or lie down,6 and their legs and feet are notseparated because they move without walking. The manifestation of God at Mount Sinai was not accompanied by any attendant creatures, angelic or otherwise.

Faces and wheels

However, when the prophet Yesheyahu (“Isaiah” in English) has a vision of God in Jerusalem in the 8th century B.C.E., he sees God (not described) sitting on a throne, the skirts of God’s robe filling the temple, and serafim (שְׂרָפִים = burning ones) standing above in attendance. These are not the same creatures as Ezekiel’s, since each seraf has one face, two feet, and six wings, and uses two of the wings to fly. (See my post Haftarat Yitro—Isaiah: The Volunteer.)

Each of the heavenly attendants in the first vision in the book of Ezekiel has four faces, one foot, and four wings.

Human hands were under their wings on four sides. And their faces and their wings were on their four sides. Their wings were joined one to another. And they did not turn when they moved; when they moved, each could proceed in the direction of any of its faces. (Ezekiel 1:8-9)

Rashi clarified that the four faces were pointed in “the four directions of the world”: north, east, south, and west.7

And in front of them was the likeness of the face of a human. And the face of a lion was to the right for each of the four, and the face of a bull on the left for each of the four, and the face of an eagle for each of the four [in back]. (Ezekiel 1:10)

According to Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, the eagle faces point north, the bull faces point west, the human faces south, and the lion faces east.8 Why those four animals? In Shemot Rabbah,

“Rabbi Avin said: Four types of exalted ones were created in the world: The most exalted of living creatures is man; the most exalted of birds is the eagle; the most exalted of domesticated animals is the ox; the most exalted of beasts is the lion. All of them received kingship, they were granted prominence, and they are fixed beneath the chariot of the Holy One blessed be He …”9

After emphasizing that the creatures moved without turning their bodies, Yechezkeil (Ezekiel) adds that something like the fire of torches is moving among the four creatures, and lightning goes out from the fire.10 Then he notices something else.

And I looked at the creatures, and hey! One wheel was on the ground beside each creature of four faces. (Ezekiel 1:15)

Although the vision begins in the center of a cloud, now it seems to have touched down to the ground. Each wheel gleams like a gem, and looks like two wheels cutting through one another to make four quarters. Like the creatures, the wheels can move in any of the four directions without turning.

Ezekiel’s Vision, by Hans Holbein the Younger, Zurich Bible, 1538

And their rims were tall and frightening; and the rims of all four were filled with eynayim, all around. (Ezekiel 1:18)

eynayim (עֵינַיִם) = pairs of eyes. (The duplex form of eyn.)

Steinsaltz explained: “The wheels were not merely implements for movement; rather, they were living beings with many eyes.”11

Visions in the Hebrew Bible are metaphorical, and the first vision in Ezekiel makes it clear that God and everything related to God is intently watching something—perhaps all humans on earth.

The wheels and the four-faced creatures move in tandem, Yechezkeil (Ezekiel) says. Some rabbis called the whole ensemble a merkavah, a chariot—perhaps because “Their wings were joined one to another” might mean the upper wings of one creature were fused to the upper wings of its neighbors, rather than merely touching them, as well as because of the synchronization of the living creatures and the wheels. The Merkavah school of mysticism, which began in the second century CE, focused on visions of God and God’s supernatural creatures, and the number four.

Then Yechezkeil (Ezekiel) tentatively describes what he saw above the four living creatures and their living wheels.

And the likeness over the head of the living creature: a vault like an eyn, awe-inspiring crystal spread out above their heads. … And above the vault like the appearance of sapphire that was over their heads was the shape of a throne, and on the appearance of the shape of a throne was a shape like the appearance of a human on it. (Ezekiel 1:22, 26)

Is the vault above the creatures’ heads like a vast crystalline eye, or like a vast crystalline spring of bubbling water? Either image is hard to comprehend.

Yechezkiel describes the “shape like the appearance of a human” as amber from the hips up, and fire from the hips down, surrounded by a rainbow radiance.

… That was the appearance of the likeness of glory of God. And I saw, and I fell on my face. And I heard the voice of someone speaking. (Ezekiel 1:28)

Then God gives him instructions.

Ezekiel’s first vision reads as if he saw something indescribable, and is laboring to describe it. The haftarah reading for Shavuot ends by skipping ahead to one more verse:

Then a spirit carried me away, and behind me I heard a great earthquake sound: “Blessed is the kavod of God in its place.” (Ezekiel 3:12)

kavod (כָּבוֹד) = glory, magnificence, weight. (In reference to God, kavod is sometimes translated as “presence”. It could also mean the splendor of a manifestation of God.)

Where is the place of God’s kavod?

For the Israelites in the book of Exodus, the place of God’s magnificent presence is Mount Sinai. For the people living in Judah during the time of the first temple, or in Judea during the time of the second temple, God’s earthly place was Jerusalem, and the way to connect with God was to bring gifts to the temple—practical gifts, like animals to burn into smoke for God, and bread for the priests to eat. And for the prophet in the book of Ezekiel, the place of God’s glory is wherever the hand of God comes upon him and God appears to him in a vision, even if he is in enemy territory.

For Jews today, the place of God’s manifestation might be in a group of people studying Exodus and Ezekiel all night on Shavuot, until physical exhaustion and the surreal visions of Ezekiel tip us over the edge into a brief mystical connection with the divine. There is more than one way to be awake.

  1. Leviticus 23:29-43, Nehemiah 8:14-17.
  2. Talmud Bavli, Pesachim 68b.
  3. Exodus 19:18. A shofar is a wind instrument consisting of the horn of a ram or goat with the tip modified as a mouthpiece.
  4. Exodus 3:1-4. The Torah alternates between calling the mountain Sinai and Choreiv, “Horeb” in English.
  5. 1 Kings 8:10-11.
  6. Rashi (11th-century rabbi Shlomoh Yitzchaki) on Ezekiel 1:7.
  7. Rashi on Ezekiel 1:8.
  8. Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 4:4, 8th-9th century C.E. midrash.
  9. Shemot Rabbah 23:13, 12th century, translation in www.sefaria.org.
  10. Ezekiel 1:13-14.
  11. Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, The Steinsaltz Nevi’m, Koren Publishers, 2019, as reprinted in www.sefaria.org.

Bemidbar, Ki Tisa, & Pinchas: Counting Men, Part 1

This week’s Torah portion, Bemidbar (Numbers 1:1-4:20) begins with God’s instructions for a census of all adult Israelite men (except the Levites, who get a separate census). The Israelites have spend over a year at Mount Sinai; they have completed making God’s new portable sanctuary and all its gear, they have consecrated new priests, and they have heard and promised to obey hundreds of laws. Now that it is time for them to resume their journey to Canaan, God orders Moshe (“Moses” in English):

Numbering of the Israelites, by Henri Felix Emmanuel Philippoteaux, 19th century

“Lift up the head of the whole community of Israelites by their clans, by their fathers’ house, according to the number of names: every male by head, from the age of twenty years and above … (Numbers 1:1-3)

“Lift up the head” is a Biblical Hebrew idiom either for pardoning people or for counting them in a census. Four times in the Hebrew Bible, God orders a census of Israelite men: once before they make the portable sanctuary (Exodus 30:12-14), once before they leave Mount Sinai (Numbers 1:1-3), once before they cross the Jordan River (Numbers 26:2), and once during the reign of King David (2 Samuel 24:1-10). Women are never counted. And each time God orders a census, there is a different reason for counting the men.

First Census

The first census, in the Torah portion Ki Tisa, counts men from all the tribes, including the tribe of Levi. While giving Moshe instructions for the sanctuary, God says:

“When you lift up the head of the Israelites for their counting, then each man must give … everyone who goes through the counting: one-half shekel … Everyone who goes through the counting, from the age of twenty years and above, will give the contribution of God.”  (Exodus 30:12, 14)

A half-shekel was a small amount of silver, measured by weight.

“The rich must not increase, and the poor must not decrease, from the half-shekel [when] giving the contribution to God to ransom your souls. And you must take the silver for the ransoming from the Israelites and give it over for the service of the Tent of Meeting …” (Exodus 30:15-16)

According to Rashbam Moses collected the half-shekels at the same time as he assembled the Israelites to ask for donations to build the sanctuary. “He was to use this opportunity to count them. The silver would be given for the work in connection with the Tabernacle that required use of this metal.”1

The final Torah portion in the book of Exodus reports that the silver from this census was used to make silver sockets, hooks, and capitals for the posts supporting the curtain separating the main chamber from the Holy of Holies.2

But the purpose of the census cannot be solely to collect silver for the construction of the sanctuary, since all the other materials are freely donated.3 I think another reason is to provide an opportunity for even the poorest men among the Israelites to contribute to the sanctuary.

Women are not included in this census because they do not own property; everything belongs to their husbands, their fathers, or their sons. But all the men are equal in this first census. Every man gives the same amount of silver, and every man’s head is “lifted up”.

Second Census

The census in this week’s Torah portion, at the beginning of the book of Numbers, has a different purpose. Moshe’s instructions from God are:

“Lift up the head of the whole community of Israelites by their clans, by their fathers’ house, according to the number of names: every male by head, from the age of twenty years and up—everyone going out tzava in Israel—you will count them letzivotam, you and Aharon.” (Numbers 1:2-3)

tzava (צָבָא) = (verb) to serve in an army. (noun) army, unit of warriors, army service; assembly of attendants of God.

letzivotam (לְצִבְאֺתָם) = for their army service; for their service attending God.

The purpose of this census is to muster men for military service. Females and males under the age of twenty are not counted, because they do not serve in the army. Non-Israelite men who had joined the exodus from Egypt are also excluded from this census, which calls for the men to be listed by their “fathers’ house”, i.e. their tribe.4 And according to Siftei Hakhamim, men over twenty who are physically unfit for service are also not counted.5

Most significantly, men in the tribe of Levi are not counted. God orders a different census for them, since they serve by attending God, rather than by fighting in the army.

“However, the tribe of Levi you must not count, and their heads you must not raise among the Israelites. But you must count the Levites for the Dwelling-place of the Testimony [in the ark], and for all its gear, and for all that belongs to it. They themselves must carry the Dwelling-place and all its implements, and they themselves must minister to it, and they must camp surrounding the Dwelling-place.” (Numbers 1:49-50)

Bemidbar Rabbah compared the Levites to the palace guard, who remain to protect the king when all the other troops leave to do battle.6

Campsite plan in Numbers 1: Three Levite clans around the Tent (blue rectangle), twelve tribes outside.

“And the Israelites will camp, each according to his encampment, each according to his banner, letzivotam. But the Levites will camp surrounding the Dwelling-place …” (Numbers 1:52-53)

The twelve non-Levite tribes are told to camp at a distance from the Dwelling-place or Tent of Meeting. The Torah gives the locations of their campsites, who the leader of each tribe will be, and how many men will be under him.7 Equally explicit instructions are also given for the marching order of the tribes (with the Levites carrying the dismantled Tent of Meeting in the middle of the line). The orders conclude:

“These are the countings of the Israelites by their fathers’ houses, all the countings of the camps, letzivotam: 603,550. But the Levites were not counted among the Israelites, as God had commanded Moshe.” (Numbers 2:32-33)

Why is this census necessary? Tur HaArokh explained:

“It was necessary for both Moses and the princes to know the numbers of each tribe and army group in order to be able to account for each soldier after the campaign, and to determine if there had been any casualties and how many there had been.”8

It is reasonable to organize the army now, before the Israelites leave Mount Sinai and march north to the Negev Desert. The southern border of Canaan is not many days away from Mount Sinai, by foot.

But although the people always knew they were headed for Canaan, they did not know they would have to fight to take the land until the census in the portion Bemidbar. Shortly after they arrived at Mount Sinai in the book of Exodus, God promised to “annihilate” the people already living in Canaan,9 and said:

“My terror I will send ahead of you, and I will panic all the peoples among whom you come. And I will give all your enemies to you by the nape of the neck. I will send the hornet of despair ahead of you, and it will drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from in front of you. … Little by little I will drive them out from in front of you, until you have been fruitful and taken possession of the land.” (Exodus 23:27-28, 30)

But now, after being counted in the census and receiving their marching orders, the Israelite men realize that they will have to do the driving out. And they have never been in an army before.

When they reach the border, Moshe sends scouts to check out the land of Canaan to the north. Upon their return, ten of the twelve scouts insist that the Canaanites are too big and strong for the Israelites to defeat in battle. The Israelite men refuse to fight. (See my post Shelach Lekha: Sticking Point.) So God puts the divine plan on hold while the people spend 40 years in the wilderness.

Third census

Mustering an army is also one purpose of the third census in the bible.

The next generation of Israelite men, more confident about fighting than their fathers, conquer two kingdoms: Cheshbon and Bashan, both east of the Jordan River. Across the Jordan to the west lies the northern part of Canaan, their final destination.

But while they are camped near the Jordan, many of the Israelite men are seduced into worshiping a foreign god. So God sends a plague that kills them. (See my post Balak & Pinchas: How to Stop a Plague, Part 1.) Then God tells Moshe:

“Lift up the head of the whole community of Israelites, from the age of twenty years and up, by their fathers’ house—everyone going out tzava in Israel.” (Numbers 26:2)

Naturally Moses and the leaders of the tribes will need to know how many soldiers each tribe can contribute to the conquest of Canaan. The Torah proceeds with the genealogy and totals for every tribe except Levi, and concludes:

These are the countings of the Israelites: 601,730. And God spoke to Moshe, saying: “To these you will distribute the land as an inheritance, by the enumerated names.” (Numbers 26:51-53)

After that there is a genealogy and count of the Levites,

… because they had not been counted among the Israelites, since they were not given an inheritance among the Israelites. (Numbers 26:62)

All the Israelite men except the Levites will be soldiers during the conquest of Canaan, and landowners afterward. The Levites will guard the sanctuary and keep the religion going during the conquest, and afterward they will continue to be religious functionaries; they can own houses in various towns, but not land.

Thus God orders the third census of Israelite men in order to determine both army divisions and land distribution.

Three censuses for the divine plan

The first three times that God orders a census of Israelite men, the purpose is to advance God’s big plan for the Israelites: to rescue them from Egypt, to give them the land of Canaan, and to make them a people who worship God exclusively and obey God’s rules for religion and government. This divine plan is first announced to Moshe at the burning bush on Mount Sinai, and its fulfillment is the underlying driver of the biblical story from that day until the end of the book of Joshua.

The first census, in the portion Ki Tisa in Exodus, requires every man to give a half-shekel toward the creation of God’s sanctuary. Every man counts. The God who orders this census seems to be considering the psychology of the Israelites as they are steered away from worshiping a golden idol and toward the religion God wants.

The second census, in the portion Bemidbar in Numbers, begins mustering an army to conquer Canaan. Although God has encouraged the Israelites by promising to make it easy, an army is still necessary for operations on the ground. This census is ordered by a practical God.

The third census, in the portion Pinchas in Numbers, prepares for the conquest of Canaan by the next generation of Israelite men. This census is even more practical than the second one, since it provides information for both military campaigns and the allotment of land once Canaan is vanquished.

The God portrayed in the Torah creates the whole world, including human beings, and continues to have total control of the weather. But history depends on what humans do. And God recognizes that the Israelite men must be counted and organized in order to carry out God’s plan.

(The fourth census, in the second book of Samuel, occurs after David has become king of the whole territory of Israel and Judah, the majority of the land called Canaan, and the Israelites live in security. This census differs from the first three, and I will discuss it in my post two weeks from now: 2 Samuel: Counting Men, Part 2.)

  1. 12th-century Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir, know by the acronym Rashbam, translation in www.sefaria.org.
  2. Exodus 38:25-28.
  3. Exodus 35:21, 36:5.
  4. C.f. 12th-century rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra.
  5. Siftei Hakhamim is a 17th-century commentary on Rashi’s Torah commentary.
  6. Bemidbar Rabbah is an 11th-12th century collection of commentary on the book of Numbers.
  7. See my post Bemidbar & Naso: Four Directions of Service.
  8. Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher (1269-1343), Tur HaArokh, translation in www.sefaria.org.
  9. Exodus 23:23.

Behar: How to Worship

In this week’s Torah portion, Behar (Leviticus 25:1-26:2), God declares:

“… the Israelites are my servants; they are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt. I am Y-H-V-H, your elohim!” (Leviticus 25:55)

elohim (אֱלֹהִים) = gods (plural of eloha = god); the God of Israel.

How are the Israelites supposed to serve God?

Serving a god, in the Ancient Near East, meant tending to the god’s supposed needs, especially bringing the god food. The book of Leviticus describes how the Israelites bring animals and grain products as offerings to the God of Israel, and priests burn them so that God can enjoy the smell of the smoke. (See my post Tzav & Jeremiah: Smoke vs. Altruism.)

Furthermore, the Torah is packed with God’s commands; Maimonides1 found 613 of them, dealing with both religious and social life.

Yet right after God claims all Israelites as God’s servants, the portion Behar concludes with one verse on how not to worship, and one verse on how to worship God. And these two verses say nothing about making offerings at the altar or obeying commands.

How not to worship

“You must not make for yourselves eliylim, or a pesel; and a matzeivah you must not erect for yourselves; and a maskit stone you must not place in your land for prostrations upon it; because I, Y-H-V-H, am your elohim.” (Leviticus 26:1)

eliylim (אֱלִילִם) = pseudo-gods, worthless gods, idols.

pesel (פֶּסֶל) = carved image; idol of cut stone or wood (from the verb pasal = carve).

matzeivah (מַצֵּבָה) = standing stone, stele.

maskit (מַשׂכּית) = image carved into a paving-stone or a wall; decoration, real or imagined.

What is God saying? Here are three possibilities:

  • Don’t worship pseudo-gods or their idols.
  • Don’t worship God through any physical images.
  • Don’t worship God by bowing down or prostrating yourself.

Don’t worship pseudo-gods

Classic medieval commentators, including Rashi,2 interpreted this verse as forbidding the worship of other gods. They pointed to the passage preceding God’s statement that all Israelites are God’s servants, which covers the manumission of Israelites sold as slaves to resident aliens. These Israelites might be tempted to worship their masters’ idols, or to work on Shabbat (the sabbath).

In the 16th century, Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno reinterpreted the passage as addressing the Israelites in exile in Babylon. Just because God had let King Nebuchadnezzar conquer Jerusalem and deport them to Babylon did not mean that their God had rejected them, and they were now free to worship other gods. Sforno cited God’s words in the next Torah portion, Bechukotai:3

“And also even then, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, and I will not cast them away to finish them off, to break my covenant with them. For I am Y-H-V-H, their God!” (Leviticus 26:44)

Don’t worship God through physical images

A later opinion4 is that the verse in Behar is a command not to worship the God of Israel in the same ways that other peoples worshiped their gods.

When people worship eliylim in the Hebrew Bible, they bow down to them,5 or consult them for an oracle.6 They also bow down to a pesel, which is forbidden in the “Ten Commandments”:

“You must not make for yourself a pesel, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or what is on the earth below, or what is in the waters beneath the earth. You must not bow down to them, and you must not serve them; because I, Y-H-V-H your elohim, am a jealous god …” (Exodus 20:4-5 and Deuteronomy 5:8-9)

Matzeivah of a god in Aram-Damascus, 9th-8th century BCE, Israel Museum, photo by M.C.

Bowing down is a gesture indicating humility in front of a superior—a king or a god.7 In addition to the many biblical references to bowing down to a pesel, the book of Habakkuk mocks people who expect a pesel to give instructions,8 and second Isaiah mocks people who pray to a pesel for rescue.9

A standing stone, called a matzeivah, can be erected to mark an important boundary,10 or a significant event.11 But when Yaakov (“Jacob” in English) wakes up from his dream of angels going up and down and God standing over him, he not only sets up a matzeivah, but ritually pours oil on top of it and vows that if God protects him until he returns,

“… Y-H-V-H will be my elohim, and this stone that I have set up as a matzeivah will be a house of Elohim, and from everything that you give me, I will set aside a tenth for you.” (Genesis 28:21-22)

On Yaakov’s return trip 20 years later he stops at the same spot. Perhaps the matzeivah has fallen down (or perhaps a redactor inserted a second story about a standing stone at Bethel), because Yaakov sets up another one.

And Yaakov erected a matzeivah at the place where he was spoken to, a matzeivah of stone, and he poured a libation on it and he poured oil on it. (Genesis 35:14)

Later in the Torah, priests pour libations at the altar as part of their service to God.

Bowing down to a standing stone is a common form of Canaanite worship in Exodus through Jeremiah, so the Israelites are repeatedly urged to smash every Canaanite matzeivah.

The word maskit appearsonly six times in the Hebrew Bible, and half of those occurrences are unrelated to gods or idols. In Ezekiel 8:12 the walls of the chambers of the former temple in Jerusalem are carved with maskit depicting creeping things and detestable beasts. Only Leviticus 26:1 and Numbers 33:52 include maskit in theirlists of Canaanite objects of worship that must be destroyed, and only the verse in Leviticus, in the portion Behar, specifies that a maskit stone is used for prostrations.

Don’t worship God by bowing

The principle way to worship all of these items, eliylim, pesel, matzeivah, or maskit, is to bow down to it, sometimes to the point of full prostration. The God of Israel definitely prohibits bowing to idols. Bowing down in homage to God is not forbidden, and characters in the Torah do prostrate themselves to God—sometimes on the impulse of the moment,12 and sometimes as part of a ritual.13

Ritual prostration to God, pointing in the general direction of Jerusalem, remains in some Jewish services today: the Tachanun part of some weekday services (at traditional synagogues) and, most notably, the Grand Aleinu on Yom Kippur.

Yet worshiping God (as opposed to pseudo-gods) by bowing down or prostrating oneself is not mentioned in this week’s Torah portion.

How to worship

Instead the portion Behar ends with God’s command:

“My sabbaths you must observe, and my holy place you must hold in awe. I am Y-H-V-H!” (Leviticus 26:2)

The implication is that bowing down is not the most important means of worship. The best way to worship God is to observe Shabbat, and to show reverence toward God’s sanctuary.

Observing Shabbat means refraining from work on the seventh day of every week—and letting your family, your slaves, and your animals rest from labor that day as well.14 The underlying idea is that then one can focus on gratitude to God. According to Zornberg, “Unplugged from one’s usual productive activities, one is left in a kind of vacuum. It is this state that is to be ‘for God.’”15

Therefore, work that counts as serving God is still done on Shabbat: priests used to offer extra animals at the altar that day,16 and today those who conduct the Torah service on Shabbat must carry out their (hopefully joyful) responsibilities.

What does holding God’s holy place in awe mean?

Steinsaltz wrote that when the temple in Jerusalem stood, “The obligation to revere the Temple includes the scrupulous observance of the sacrificial rituals and the preservation of the Temple’s ritual purity.”17 Thus the requirement to hold God’s holy place in awe might include worship through turning offerings into smoke, after all.

And Hirsch wrote: “… we can pay Him homage by paying homage to His Law. Only by prostrating ourselves before His Torah do we prostrate ourselves before Him. For this reason, the only place fit for prostration is His holy place, the Sanctuary that was established for His Torah. … Even in ruins, this place remains consecrated ground …”19

However, although the book of Leviticus was written after the 6th-century B.C.E. destruction of the first temple in Jerusalem, the events it describes take place at Mount Sinai immediately after the Israelites have finished making a portable tent and its furnishings for God to dwell in. In Leviticus through Deuteronomy, God’s holy place is not a temple; it is the tent-sanctuary in the center of the Israelite camp, wherever it may be.

According to Sforno, God’s holy place that we are to hold in awe “could be the tent sanctuary, or the temple—or a synagogue or Torah study hall”.19

After all, according to Rabbi Hananiah ben Teradion in Pirkei Avot, “… if two sit together and there are words of Torah [spoken] between them, then the Shekhinah [God’s presence] abides among them.”20

Experiencing a sense of the numinous is part of human nature. So is the impulse to acknowledge and reach out to something ineffable. For thousands of years, many human beings have channeled this impulse into worship of one or more gods.

The Hebrew Bible does not have a separate word corresponding to the English word “worship”. But it does have words for bowing down or prostrating oneself (hishtachavot), service (avodah), and prayer (tefilah).

The Torah forbids us to bow down to an idol. But it does let us use beautiful objects to anchor our worship. The ancient Israelites may have scorned the carved stone images of the Canaanites, but the entrance of God’s portable tent-sanctuary had a cloth screen embroidered with rich blue, purple, and red yarn, and posts overlaid with gold.21 The first and second temples in Jerusalem were even more ornamental.

A visit to the temple meant not only a feast for the eyes, but an overwhelming experience for the other senses. The Levites chanted psalms and played musical instruments. Priests burned aromatic incense. When you brought an animal offering, you laid your hands on the beast’s warm, hairy head. When you brought a wholeness-offering, some of the roasted meat was returned for your party to feast on.

When we make our religion too abstract, we approach the divine with only one part of ourselves, the rational function of our minds. But our minds are much bigger than that. Reading a prayer silently makes me think about the meaning of words; singing a prayer lifts my spirit. Thinking about time and space impresses my intellect; looking at a blossoming tree or a smiling face moves my heart with a feeling of the divine.

In other words, do not get stranded in abstract theories about what God is. But also do not get stuck at the level of a stone carving, or picture of a bearded man in the sky. Let the rituals, the songs, and the stories of your religion move your heart. And acknowledge that all these things are part of the Holy.

  1. 12th century rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, known as Maimonides or Rambam, Sefer HaMitzvot. Subsequent lists of God’s commands (mitzvot) are based on his work.
  2. Rashi is the acronym of 11th-century Rabbi Shlomoh Yitzchaki, whose commentary has been a reference point for Jewish exegesis over the past millennium.
  3. The Hebrew calendar is lunar. In years with 12 months (including this year of 5786), there are some weeks when two consecutive Torah portions are read. When there is a year with 13 months to adjust the lunar calendar to the solar cycle, each Torah portion is read on a separate week.
  4. E.g. 19th-century Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash: Sefer Vayikra, Part 2, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, 2000, p. 934-5; and 21st-century Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, The Steinsaltz Tanakh, Koren Publishers, 2019.
  5. Isaiah 2:8, 2:20.
  6. Isaiah 19:3.
  7. C.f. prostration before a king in Genesis 27:29, 2 Samuel 9:6, and I Kings 1:31.
  8. Habakkuk 2:18.
  9. Isaiah 44:17.
  10. Genesis 41:44-53.
  11. Genesis 35:20, Exodus 24:4-7.
  12. E.g. Exodus 34:8, Leviticus 9:24.
  13. E.g. Deuteronomy 26:10, Nehemiah 8:6.
  14. Exodus 20:8-10 and Deuteronomy 5:14 (in the “Ten Commandments”).
  15. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Hidden Order of Intimacy: Reflections on the Book of Leviticus, Schocken Books, New York, 2022, p. 232.
  16. E.g. Numbers 28:9-10.
  17. Steinsaltz, ibid., in www.sefaria.org.
  18. Hirsch, ibid., translation by Daniel Haberman, p. 937.
  19. 16th-century rabbi Ovadiah Sforno, translation in www.sefaria.org.
  20. Pirkei Avot 3:2, circa 200 C.E., translation by Joshua Kulp in www.sefaria.org.
  21. Exodus 26:36-37.

Emor: God of Life

Death is not holy.

The main way that the Israelites worship God in the Hebrew Bible is by burning kosher animals on the altar, so the smoke rises to the heavens. These animals become holy as soon as they are dedicated to God.1 Once they are slaughtered, priests are responsible for splashing their blood on the altar, butchering them, and laying out the pieces over the fire. The death of cattle, goats, and sheep is part of the process of worship.

The Priests, by James Tissot, ca. 1900

But the death of a human being is different. Anyone who touches a dead human body, or enters a tent or house containing a corpse, must complete seven days of purification before they are allowed to enter precincts of God’s sanctuary or temple. (See my post Chukat: Death and the Red Cow, Part 1.) Worship of the God of Israel must remain completely separate from the experience of death of a human being.

And since priests in the ancient Israelite system are the intermediaries between God and the rest of the people, the rules are more stringent for them.

When priests are exposed to death

This week’s Torah portion, Emor (Leviticus/Vayikra 21:1-24:23) begins with this instruction from God regarding the priests, the descendants of Aharon (“Aaron” in English):

For a dead person among his people, he [a priest] must not make himself tamei.” (Leviticus 21:1)

tamei (טָמֵא) = impure, contaminated, defiled—in a way that makes one unfit to approach God.

The nearest relatives of someone who has died are supposed to participate in the burial. So although priests must avoid dead bodies as much as possible, there are exceptions.

—except for his near kin, the one close to him: for his mother, or for his father, or for his son, or for his daughter, or for his brother; or for his virgin sister, the one close to him who has never belonged to a man, for her he may make himself tamei. (Leviticus 21:2-3)

Apparently in a male-centered culture a man is closer to a married brother than to a married sister.

What about his wife? Hirsch wrote that his wife becomes his near kin when they are married, and she does not need to be listed separately.2 Other commentators find the priest’s wife in the next verse:

He must not make himself tamei, a baal among his people, to profane himself. (Leviticus 21:4)

baal (בַּעַל) =husband, owner, master, god.

Ramban interpreted baal here as a prominent man among the Israelites, and argued that any prominent man, including a priest, should not demean himself by becoming defiled by a dead body.3

Others interpret baal here as a husband. One classic opinion was that the verse applies to a hereditary priest who was disqualified from priestly duties because he married a divorcée or another category of woman whom priests are forbidden to marry. Since he no longer serves in the sanctuary, he does not need to be ritually pure at all times. But according to Rashi, this priest is still not allowed to profane himself by attending his wife’s burial, as long as there are other people who can bury her.4

I prefer Rashbam’s simpler explanation of the verse: priests are forbidden from acting like the husbands of the rest of the Israelites, who bury their wives. “No husband among the tribe of the priests is to defile himself ritually, as he would thereby desecrate his status as a priest.”5

How close the husband and wife are emotionally does not matter when it comes to laws of purity.

A practical explanation of the rules minimizing the contact between priests and corpses is that God’s sanctuary or temple must always be staffed with enough priests to serve the public by making offerings and by ruling on religious questions. Since a priest, like anyone else, must be separated from the center of religious life for seven days after being near a dead person, those seven-day leaves of absence must be limited.

The Baal haTurim wrote: “As a result of our verses here, priests who do not take part in funerals do not do so because they consider themselves superior, but because the Torah forced them to act in what to some might appear in the wrong light. They maintain a state of purity for God’s sake, so as always to be on “call,” if the occasion should arise.”6

Holy they must be to their God, and they must not profane the name of their God; since they bring near the fire-offerings of God, they bring near the food of their God, then they must be holy! (Leviticus 21:6)

The Torah also considers it more important for priests to honor God than to honor family members who have died. Sforno noted: “… the prime purpose of burying and eulogizing the dead is to render honor to them. This conflicts with the honor the priests have to accord to God on an ongoing basis.”7

When priests mourn

This week’s Torah portion also reminds priests not to disfigure themselves in grief over the dead, a common custom for men in the Ancient Near East.

They must not make a bald spot on their head, and the edge of their beard they must not shave off, and on their skin they must not carve a carving. (Leviticus 21:5)

Other Israelites are forbidden to shave their eyebrows for the dead,8 but priests are forbidden to shave any part of their head. Like other Israelites, priests are also forbidden to mourn by shaving the edges of their beards or cutting their skin.9 The Torah mentions these alterations to the body because in neighboring countries men expressed the depth of their mourning by yanking out their hair and gashing their skin.10

Hirsch’s explanation is: “Upon the loss of a loved one, the survivor indicates that his own body, too, has lost its value.”11

A lack of respect for one’s body would not be a problem in an ascetic religion that values only the ineffable soul. But Judaism has always praised and blessed physical health and comfort as gifts from God. Failing to respect the living human body, according to many commentators, means failing to respect the God of Life.12

The high priest

High Priest, A History of Costume, by Braun & Schneider, 1861-1880

The rules in the Torah portion Emor are even stricter for the high priest than for his subordinate priests.

And the priest who is greater than his brothers, upon whose head has been poured the oil of anointing, and whose hand has been consecrated to dress in the garments:  he must not neglect [the hair on] his head, and he must not tear his garments.” (Leviticus 21:10)

To this day, Jewish mourning customs include tearing a garment (or at least a symbolic strip of cloth pinned to the chest) at the funeral, and avoiding shaving or trimming one’s hair for the first 30 days after the death. This week’s Torah portion forbids a high priest from doing even that much to mourn a family member. Since his head was anointed with oil to make him the high priest, he must continue to keep his hair trimmed. And since he wears special vestments, he must keep them intact.

“And he must not enter [a place] with any dead person; [even] for his father or for his mother he must not make himself tamei.” (Leviticus 21:11)

The other priests are allowed to go into the tent or room where the dead body of a parent, a child, or a sibling lay, even though it would contaminate them for seven days. The high priest may not do so. Furthermore, he must not leave the precincts of the tent-sanctuary or temple for the burial.

“And he must not leave the, and he must not profane the Holy Place of his God; because the crown of the anointing oil of his God is upon him. I am God!” (Leviticus 21:12)

Ramban explained: “Instead, the honor of the Sanctuary and its Service is to be greater to him than his honor of and love for the dead.”13

And Sforno added: “People would conclude that giving honor to the dead is more important than to remain within the sphere of God’s immediate presence, something he enjoys as the exceptional privilege of being exposed to on an ongoing basis.”14

Although the Torah requires all of the priests to serve as public symbols of holiness, the high priest is the ultimate symbol. He even wears a unique gold medallion on his forehead engraved with the words “Holy to God”.15 He may grieve in his heart for someone who has died, but he must not show any sign of grieving in public—like Aharon, the first high priest, when his two oldest sons are killed by God’s fire inside the tent-sanctuary.

And Moshe said to Aharon: “It is what God spoke: Through those near to me I will be proven holy, and in front of all the people I will be honored.” And Aharon was silent. (Leviticus 10:3)

Moshe sends two of Aharon’s cousins, who were not consecrated as priests, into the tent to carry out the bodies.

The honor that the priests, especially the high priest, give to God sets the benchmark for all the Israelites.

As a symbol of God, a priest must always stand for life, life in the body, in this world. In Judaism, this life is God’s great gift to us.

Of course, life and death must co-exist in this world; you cannot have one without the other. But we can choose which aspect of reality to focus on and appreciate. When I meet people whose personal religion revolves around an afterlife, I wonder if they are fully appreciating this life, in this world. I find that the more attention I pay to everything that is alive, right now, the more I appreciate life, the more I rejoice in creation, and the more I want to sing praises.

Psalm 114, using the term “Yah” (יָהּ) for God, says:

The dead cannot praise Yah,
nor any who go down into silence.

But we will bless Yah,

From now until forever. Praise Yah! (Psalm 114:17-18)

In Hebrew, “Praise Yah!” is Hallelu-Yah (הַלְלוּ־יָהּ).

  1. Leviticus 27:9.
  2. 19th-century rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash: Sefer Vayikra, Part 2, translated by Daniel Haberman, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, 2000, p. 700-701.
  3. Ramban is the acronym of 13th-century rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, a.k.a. Nachmanides.
  4. Rashi is the acronym of 11th-century rabbi Shlomoh Yitzchaki.
  5. Rashbam (acronym of 12th-century rabbi Shmuel ben Meir), translation in www.sefaria.org.
  6. Rabbi Jacob ben Asher (c. 1269 – c. 1343), a.k.a. the Baal haTurim, Tur HaArokh, translation in www.sefaria.org.
  7. 16th-century rabbi Ovadiah Sforno, translation in www.sefaria.org.
  8. Deuteronomy 14:1. See my post Re-eih: Eyebrows for the Dead.
  9. Leviticus 19:27-28.
  10. Cutting or piercing the skin was also part of tattooing, practiced in Mesopotamia to mark the ownership of slaves.
  11. Hirsch, p. 703.
  12. The epithet “God of Life” first appears in Deuteronomy 5:23, and is found often in the books of the Prophets.
  13. Ramban, ibid.
  14. Sforno, ibid.
  15. See my post Tetzaveh: Flower on the Forehead.

Acharey Mot & Kedoshim: Cut Off

How do the Israelites and the people who left Egypt with them clear out a year’s worth of guilt for misdeeds? And what should they be doing in order to be holy?

The Hebrew calendar has fewer weeks this year, so this week has a double Torah portion: Acharey Mot (Leviticus 16:1-18:30), with its annual ritual for atonement; and Kedoshim (Leviticus 19:1-20:27), with its holiness codes. We learn this week that we must cast out our misdeeds, but not the foreigners among us.

A ritual with two goats

Goats, by Dugal Steward Walker, 1921

Once a year, on Yom Kippur (“Day of Atonement”), the high priest makes atonement for the wrongdoing of all the Israelites, rendering the people and their sanctuary pure again. The most important part of the long ritual requires two male goats, preferably identical.1

The rules for the ritual refer to Aharon (“Aaron” in English), the first high priest.

He must take the two se-irim and stand them in front of Y-H-V-H at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. And Aharon must place lots upon the two se-irim: one lot for Y-H-V-H and one lot for Azazeil. (Leviticus/Vayikra 16:7-8)

se-irim (שְׂעִרִם) = goats; goat-demons. Singular: sa-ir (שָׂעִיר) = hairy male goat; long hair; rain shower. 

We do not know who or what Azazeil is. (See my post Acharey Mot: Azazeil.)

Then Aharon must bring forward the sa-ir for which the lot for Y-H-V-H came up, and he must make it a chataat. But the sa-ir for which the lot for Azazeil came up, it shall stand alive in front of Y-H-V-H, to make atonement upon it—to send it to Azazeilin the wilderness. (Leviticus16:9-10)

chataat (חַטָּאת) = infraction, violation of a rule (often inadvertent); guilt offering, offering to atone for an infraction.

The goat designated for God is slaughtered and burned as a chataat, an offering that is normally made when individuals realize that they unintentionally violated one of God’s rules.2 Offering one hairy goat to God on Yom Kippur covers any violations that were not already atoned for, removing the impurity caused by those deeds.

The high priest sprinkles the blood of the slaughtered goat on the lid of the ark in the Holy of Holies (along with the blood of a bull that serves as the chataat for the priests). But this blood only purifies the Tent of Meeting. The high priest also sprinkles the blood of both animals on the altar outside the Tent of Meeting, purifying it as well.

This is not enough, however, to purify the people.

Sending Out the Scapegoat, by William James Webb, 19th century

He finishes making atonement for the Holy place and the Tent of Meeting and the altar. Then he brings forward the live sa-ir. And Aharon must lean his two hands on the head of the live sa-ir and confess over it all the iniquities3 of the Israelites, and all their rebellious-transgressions,4 for all their chataat. And he will place them on the head of the sa-ir, and he will send it free by the hand of a designated man into the wilderness. (Leviticus 16:20-21)

What is the high priest’s confession on behalf of the Israelites? According to the early Talmudic work Sifra, the high priest recites:

“Please, God, atone, I beseech You, for the iniquities, and for the rebellious-transgressions, and for the infractions, which they have committed, and transgressed, and violated before You, Your people, the house of Israel.”5

According to the Talmud,6 the iniquities and the rebellious-transgressions are intentional sins, which individuals were not allowed to atone for by bringing chataat offerings during the year. But once a year, the high priest could make atonement for everyone’s iniquities and rebellious-transgressions by transferring them to the head of the hairy goat. Sifra explains:

“Once he confesses his iniquities and rebellious-transgressions, they are regarded as unwitting sins before Him.”7

In Yom Kippur services today there are no high priests or goats. The congregation confesses to more specific categories of wrongdoing: “We have betrayed, we have robbed, we have slandered …”8 Individuals are supposed to apologize and make amends to the people they have wronged before Yom Kippur begins. The purpose of the Yom Kippur ritual is to atone for the other ways we have fallen short, clearing our consciences so we can start again with a clean slate, at peace with God.

In both the ancient Yom Kippur ritual and the current one, according to 19th-century Rabbi Mecklenburg, “… the main understanding of confession and atonement is throwing away and abandoning the sin.”9

The instructions regarding the live goat conclude:

Then the sa-ir will carry off on itself all their iniquities, to a cut-off land. And he must send free the sa-ir into the wilderness. (Leviticus 16:22)

Perhaps when the book of Leviticus was written (possibly in the 6th century B.C.E.), there were still many stretches of desert wilderness that were inaccessible and unexplored—places where a goat could graze and live out its life without ever encountering a human being again. But by end of the second temple period in 70 C.E., no place was truly cut off from people.

By the first century C.E., the designated man took the goat to a cliff, tied its horns to a rock, and pushed the rock off. “And it would not reach halfway down the mountain until it was torn limb from limb.”10

Goat-demons

Later in the portion Acharey Mot, the word se-irim is used for goat-demons.

They must not slaughter any more of their slaughterings for the se-irim they are whoring after. This is a decree forever for them throughout their generations.  (Leviticus 17:7)

The people must not slaughter a goat and burn it up into smoke for any supernatural being other than God.

The Torah often refers to worshiping other gods in terms of prostitution. We do not know whether some people worshiped goat-demons with animal sacrifices, or whether Azazeil was considered the god of the goat-demons. When the Israelites sent a live goat carrying their misdeeds out into the wilderness, were they sending it to where the goat-demons lived?

And to them you must say: Any man of the House of Israel, or of the geir who yagur in their midst, who offers a rising-offering or a slaughter, and does not bring it to the Tent of Meeting to make it [an offering] to Y-H-V-H: that man he will be cut off from among his people! (Leviticus 17:8-9)

geir (גֵר) =resident alien, immigrant. (From the root verb gur, גּוּר = sojourn, live somewhere as a resident alien.)

yagur (יָגוּר) = dwells as a resident alien. (Another form of the verb gur.)

Everyone, even residents who came from other countries, must make offerings only to Y-H-V-H, the God of Israel. Religious tolerance was not part of ancient Israelite thought.

The Immigrant

But acceptance and kindness toward immigrants was. The second Torah portion for this week, Kedoshim, lists rules for being holy—some from the Ten Commandments, some from other laws in Exodus, and some that prescribe other ethical behavior. Two of the laws in Kedoshim stand out because they use the word “love”.11

You must not hate your kinsman in your heart; you must definitely reprove your comrade; then you will not carry guilt because of him … And you must love your fellow as yourself. I am God! (Leviticus 19:17-18)

And when yagur with you a geir in your land, you must not oppress him. Like a native citizen among you he shall be to you, the geir who is a geir with you; and you must love him as yourself. For you were geirim in the land of Egypt! I am God, your god! (Leviticus 19:33-34)

geirim (גֵרִים) = plural of geir.

This is not the only Torah portion that dictates correct feelings. For example, the last of the Ten Commandments prohibits coveting.12 It is easier to act as if you love someone, but the feeling of love can be cultivated, with enough determination and practice.

Loving geirim goes hand in hand with treating them the same way you treat people in your own group—and the same way you want others to treat you. As Hillel the Elder said in the first century B.C.E., “That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation. Go study.”13

It helps to empathize with the person you want to love. The Torah portion Kedoshim reminds the Israelites that their own ancestors were resident aliens in Egypt, where they were mercilessly oppressed. Therefore geirim should not only be treated as well as the ethnic Israelites, but given extra consideration as a disadvantaged group.

The disadvantaged groups that must be given ample opportunities to glean fields and orchards are the poor, the fatherless, widows, and immigrants.14 Deuteronomy reminds the Israelites that God chose the Israelites because God loved their ancestors, and then describes God as—

The one who provides justice for the fatherless and the widow, and the one who loves the geir, giving him food and clothing. So you must love the geir, since you were geirim in the land of Egypt! (Deuteronomy 10:18-10:19).

The Hebrew Bible also specifies that geirim are subject to the same laws as natives, both the civil laws and some of the religious laws. One of the religious laws that also applies to geirim is a requirement for observing Yom Kippur:

And it is a decree for you forever: In the seventh month, on the tenth of the month, you must humble your souls [with fasting], and you must not do any labor—neither the native nor the geir who is a geir among you. Because on this day atonement will be made for you, to purify you from all your wrongdoing; you will become pure in front of Y-H-V-H. (Acharey Mot, Leviticus 16:29-30)

The implication is that when the live hairy goat carries the misdeeds of the whole community into the wilderness, it carries the misdeeds of the geirim as well as the native Israelites.

Leviticus urges us to purify ourselves by exiling our guilt to a place that is cut off from normal live. It is good to clear out your guilt after you have done something wrong, and confessed or apologized, and made amends in any way that is possible—whether you transfer it to a goat and send it to a faraway land, or spend over 24 hours fasting and praying on Yom Kippur.

Leviticus also orders us not to cut off immigrants and resident aliens, but to love them as we love ourselves and our own people. We must not oppress immigrants by subjecting them to slave labor making bricks—or by shooting at them, or by arresting and jailing them for reasons that do not apply to native citizens, or by deporting them to distant lands—lands that the immigrants may never have seen, lands that may be even more hostile than your own country.

We must not transfer our guilts or fears to a human scapegoat.

  1. Talmud Bavli, Yoma 62b.
  2. Leviticus 4:1-3, 4:13-15, 4:22-24, 4:27-29.
  3. The Hebrew word is avonot (עֲוֹנֺת) = iniquities, wicked deeds.
  4. The Hebrew word is pisheyhem (פִּשְֵׁיהֶם) = rebellious transgressions of God’s rules.
  5. Sifra (a book on Leviticus written 250-350 C.E.), “Acharei Mot”, Section 4:6.
  6. Talmud Yerushalmi, Yoma 3:7:6, and Talmud Bavli, Yoma 36b.
  7. Sifra, Ibid.
  8. Yom Kippur Machzor, Ashamnu section in the Amidah.
  9. Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, HaKesav veHaKabbalah, c. 1829-1839, translation in www.sefaria.org.
  10. Talmud Bavli, Yoma 6a, translated by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, William Davidson Edition, www.sefaria.org.
  11. The Hebrew word for “love” is ahav (אָהַב).
  12. Exodus 20:14, Deuteronomy 5:18.
  13. Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 31:1, translated by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, William Davidson Edition, www.sefaria.org.
  14. Leviticus 19:10 and 23:22.

Haftarat Tazria—1 Kings: A Foreign Slave

This week’s Torah portion, Tazria (Leviticus/Vayikra 12:1-13:59), gives instructions for a priest to diagnose a skin abnormality called tzara-at (צָרַעַת), a non-contagious condition characterized by white, often scaly patches. Any Israelite who has tzara-at is ritually impure and must be socially isolated.

… his garments must be torn, and his head [of hair] must be let loose, and his upper lip must be covered, and he must cry out “Impure! Impure!” All the days that the mark is on him … he will dwell alone; outside the camp is his dwelling place. (Leviticus 13:45-46)

Naaman, by Pieter Fransz de Grebber, 17th c., detail

This week’s haftarah reading from the Prophets (2 Kings 4:42-5:19) tells the story of the Aramaean general Na-aman, who is miraculously cured of his tzara-at thanks to an Israelite slave and an Israelite prophet.

Na-aman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man before his lord, and his face was lifted [he was respected]; because through him, God had given victory to Aram. But the man, who was a mighty warrior, was a metzora. (2 Kings 5:1)

metzora (מְצֺרָע) = person with tzara-at (צָרַעַת),

Na-aman continues to live in his own house in the capital, Damascus. During the course of the story, he has an audience with his king, and he travels with an escort of horsemen. So either a metzora suffered less ostracism in the kingdom of Aram than in Israel, or the author of 2 Kings assumed that Aramaeans were less concerned about ritual purity.

Nevertheless, Na-aman considers his unsightly skin a serious enough problem to be worth journeying to another country and paying a lot of silver and gold for a cure.

But who can cure tzara-at? Na-aman only finds out about the possibility of a cure because he owns a slave from the kingdom of Israel.

A captive girl

And Aram had gone out marauding, and had taken captive a young na-arah from the land of Israel. And she was waiting on Na-aman’s wife. (2 Kings 5:2)

na-arah (נַעֲרָה) = girl: an unmarried adolescent female, or a female slave.

A raiding party from the kingdom of Aram could easily cross the border into the northern, less populated part of the kingdom of Israel. And raids between countries in the 10th-8th centuries C.E. were common, judging by the Hebrew Bible, where sometimes Israelites are the perpetrators, and sometimes armed bands from other countries raid Israelites villages. Either way, the raiders kill the men of the village, then bring home the booty, which includes women, children, and livestock. Women are raped, and both women and children are sold as slaves.

For example, before David becomes the king of Judah, he leads a large band of outlaws. At one point he is a vassal of Akhish, the Philistine king of Gath, who gives him the town of Ziklag. David leads his men in raids on villages outside Gath (and outside Israel), and splits the loot with King Akhish.

Once when David and his men come home to Ziklag, they discover that a band of Amalekites have raided it, burned it down, and taken all the women and children captive.2 David’s men hunt down the Amalekites, kill all the men who do not escape in time, and recover all of their own women, children, and livestock.3 The story implies that the Amalekites raped some of the women, since David and his men catch them chogegim (חֺגְגִוּם) = celebrating; engaging in illicit sex.4 But as least none of the women had been sold yet.

Raiding was a normal part of life in the Ancient Near East. So was slavery, both debt-slavery and the slavery of foreign captives.

Israelites who could not repay loans sold themselves and/or their children as temporary slaves. According to the book of Exodus, an Israelite man must be freed after six years of slavery, and when an Israelite girl reaches puberty her status changes from slave to wife of her owner or his son. (See my post Mishpatim: On Slavery.)

But the rules are different when the slave is a foreign captive. The Torah considers a foreign slave, male or female, the owner’s permanent property, property that can be resold or inherited.5

Naaman’s Wife and the Slave-girl, from Rev. Hurlburt, Story of the Bible, 1904

A sympathetic slave

And Aram had gone out marauding, and had taken captive a young na-arah from the land of Israel. And she was waiting on Na-aman’s wife. (2 Kings 5:2)

Who captured the Israelite girl in this week’s haftarah?

As the commander of the entire army of the large kingdom of Aram, Na-aman would not be part of a raiding band himself. Probably one of Na-aman’s soldiers raided an Israelite village and seized the na-arah. Then she was either given or sold to General Na-Aman, who assigned her to wait on his wife.

Waiting on the wife of an important man would be a light duty, probably lighter work than the na-arah had done at home. In Na-aman’s house in Damascus she would eat well, and be given clothing and a bed. She would probably grieve for the men in her family who had been killed, but, as Rabbi Steinsaltz concluded: “Over time, she became close to her mistress, and the Israelite girl, who had observed Naaman’s distress and loneliness, sought to help him.”6

And she said to her mistress: “Oh would that my lord were in front of the prophet who is in Samaria! That is who would remove his tzara-at from him!” (2 Kings 5:3)

Samaria7 is the capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel. The kingdoms of Aram and Israel are neither allies nor enemies at the time, but Aram is more powerful.

When he hears what the na-arah said, Na-aman tells his king, saying:

Like this and like that spoke the na-arah who is from the land of Israel. (2 Kings 5:4)

The king of Aram gives his commander permission to leave and a letter for the king of Israel.

Why does the na-arah feel sympathy for Na-aman, her owner and the commander of the army of Aram?

The author of the story named him Na-aman (נַעֲמָן), which comes from the verb na-am (נָעָמ) = was pleasant, was agreeable. Na-aman gets angry only once, later in the haftarah, when he is waiting in his chariot outside the house of the prophet Elisha in Samaria, backed by his escort of horsemen. He expects the miracle-worker to come out to him, but Elisha stays inside and sends him a message telling him to go bathe seven times in the Jordan River. Na-aman complains:

“Hey! I said to myself: He will certainly come out and stand and call on the name of Y-H-V-H his god, and he will wave his hand over the place and remove the tzara-at!” (2 Kings 5:11)

The commander of the army of Aram feels insulted. He adds:

“Are not the Amana and the Parpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I bathe in them and be purified?” And he turned and went away in burning indignation. (2 Kings 5:12)

Elisha has even insulted Na-aman’s country.

But his avadim approached and spoke to him, they said: “Sir, [if] the prophet spoke to you of a big thing, wouldn’t you do it? Then how much more when he said to you: Bathe and be purified.” (2 Kings 5:13)

avadim (עֲבָדִים) = subordinates: slaves, servants, courtiers, those who serve God.

The horsemen are Na-aman’s subordinates, but they are used to speaking to him frankly. And he respects their opinion. (See my post 2 Kings and Tazria: Skin.)

Then he went down and dipped into the Jordan seven times, in accordance with the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young na-ar, and he was purified. (2 Kings 5:14)

na-ar (נַעַר) = boy: an unmarried adolescent male, or a male slave.

In context, Na-aman’s skin now looks like the skin of a young adolescent boy. But he has also been humbled. He returns to Elisha’s house and stands in front of him. (In the Hebrew Bible, someone of lower rank stands in front of a seated person of higher rank.) Na-aman says:

“Hey, now I know that there is no god in the whole world except in Israel! And now please take this gift from avdekha.” (2 Kings 5:15)

avdekha (עַבְדֶּךָ) = your servant, your subordinate. (Another form of avadim.)

Na-aman respectfully refers to himself as subordinate to Elisha. And Elisha, refusing to accept any gift, calls himself God’s servant by saying he stands in front of God.8

Since Na-aman trusted the judgment of his horsemen, it is easy to believe that he also trusted the judgment of his na-arah—even before she mentioned the prophet in Samaria, and he acted on her information.

No wonder the na-arahfrom Israelfelt sympathy for her owner, a pleasant man who respects what his subordinates say.

Even in an ancient society where it is normal to own slaves, and even in a society where it is normal to raid a village, kill all the men, and seize the women, human nature is not all bad. This week’s haftarah demonstrates that there can also be kindness, sympathy, respect, and humility.

Even in a modern society where it is normal for some people to be homeless or starving, and even in a society where it is normal to start a war that kills men, women, and children, human nature is not all bad. We do not need to sink to the level of some world leaders. We can act instead with kindness, sympathy, and respect—and work to change our governments so that there will be healing instead of destruction.

  1. Deuteronomy 20:10-11.
  2. 1 Samuel 30:1-4.
  3. 1 Samuel 30:16-20.
  4. 1 Samuel 30:16.
  5. Leviticus 25:44-46.
  6. Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, Steinsaltz on Tanakh: II Kings, http://www.sefaria.org.
  7. “Shomron” (שֺׁמְרוֹן) in Hebrew.
  8. 2 Kings 5:16.

Shemini : Haunted by a Cow

Moshe (“Moses” in English) is the protagonist in the story of Exodus through Deuteronomy—from his secret birth in Egypt, to his death on a peak overlooking Canaan. His brother Aharon (“Aaron” in English) is three years older, but the Torah does not even tell us that he exists until Moshe’s first time on Mount Sinai, when he is begging God to send someone else to free the Israelites from Egypt.1

Then God replies:

“Isn’t your brother Aharon, the Levite? I know that he can certainly speak, and also, hey! he is going out to meet you. And he will see you, and he will rejoice in his heart. And you will speak to him, and put the words in his mouth. And I, I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will teach you both what you must do.” (Exodus 4:14-15)

The brother who assisted the prophet

When Aharon first hears from God, the Torah simply reports:

Then God said to Aharon: “Go to the wilderness to meet Moshe.” And he went, and he encountered him at the mountain of God, and he kissed him. (Exodus 4:27)

The two brothers walk back to Egypt, where Aharon assembles all the Israelites elders and tells them everything that Moshe has told him. This is the last time that Aharon does the talking for Moshe in the book of Exodus. (See my post Shemot to Bo: Moses Finds his Voice.) But he continues to serve as Moshe’s assistant through all ten of God’s miraculous plagues.

Throughout the book of Exodus, Moshe is the prophet, the leader, and the center of attention. When God does not tell him what to do, he decides on his own. Aharon does whatever his little brother tells him to do.

Adoration of the Golden Calf, Hortus deliciarum of Herrad of Landsberg, 12th c.

Aharon’s first independent act is making a golden calf in the Torah portion Ki Tisa (Exodus 30:11-34:35), a clear violation of God’s law. Despite his crime, he becomes the high priest of the Israelites in this week’s Torah portion, Shemini (Leviticus 9:1-11:47).

Ki Tisa: the brother who made a golden calf

When the Israelites reach Mount Sinai, Moshe is the one who listens to all of God’s rules and passes them on to the people. Then God summons Moshe to climb to the summit alone and receive the stone tablets. Before he hikes up, Moshe assigns Aharon and another leader named Chur to judge legal cases in his absence. His absence lasts for 40 days and 40 nights, as he listens to God’s instructions for setting up a centralized religion.

At the top of Mount Sinai, God tells Moshe that Aharon will be the first high priest, and his four sons will be priests under him. But at the foot of Mount Sinai, the Israelites abandon hope that their leader will ever return to them.

And the people saw that Moshe was shamefully late in coming down from the mountain, and they assembled against Aharon and said to him: “Get up, make us a god that will go before us! Because this Moshe, the man who brought us up from Egypt, we do not know what has become of him!” (Exodus 32:1)

Like the other Israelites, Aharon heard the second of the “Ten Commandments”: “You must not make an idol, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or what is on the earth underneath, or what is in the waters underneath the earth. You must not bow down to them and you must not serve them …” (Exodus 20:4-5)

And like the other Israelites, Aharon heard Moshe repeat God’s subsequent law: “With me, you must not make gods of silver or gods of gold. You must not make them!” (Exodus 20:20, 24:3-4)

As one of the two designated judges, Aharon is supposed to hand down the law. Yet when a group of Israelites order him make them a god, Aharon immediately asks the people for their gold earrings.

And he took [the gold] from their hand, and he shaped it with an engraving tool, and he made it into a cast eigel. And they said: “This is your god, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!” (Exodus 32:4)

eigel (עֵגֶל) = calf, bull-calf.

And Aharon saw, and he built an altar, and he proclaimed: “A festival for Y-H-V-H tomorrow!” (Exodus 32:5)

Has Aharon completely forgotten God’s prohibitions against gold idols? Or does he think that God will overlook his disobedience as long as he claims that the golden calf represents the right god, the God whose personal name is spelled Y-H-V-H?

Is he simply afraid to oppose the men who asked him to make an idol? (According to the midrash collection Vayikra Rabbah, the Israelites asked Chur for an idol first, and killed him when he refused to make one.)2 Later commentators added that Aharon’s fear made him stall for time, in the hope that Moshe would return before the festival.3

Or was Aharon an agreeable person who has never learned how to handle confrontation, because his little brother was always there to do it?

And they got up early the next day, and they raised fire-offerings and they offered wholeness-offerings, and the people sat down to eat and to drink. Then they got up to make merry. (Exodus 32:6)

Their happy relief is interrupted by Moshe striding into the camp and shattering the two stone tablets he received from God. Then he grinds the gold calf into dust.

And Moshe said to Aharon: “What did this people do to you, that you have brought upon them a great chatah?” (Exodus 32:21)

chatah (חֲטָאָה) = guilt, sin (in relation to God).

And Aharon said: “Don’t let my lord’s nose get hot [with anger]! You yourself know the people, that they are set on evil. They said to me: Make us a god that will go before us, because this Moshe, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him! And I said to them: Who has gold? And they broke it off and gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this eigel!” (Exodus 32:22-24)

At least Aharon does not invent an excuse for his behavior, although he does make it sound as if the calf emerged all by itself, without any shaping or casting on Aharon’s part.

I can imagine Moshe rolling his eyes. But instead of asking his brother a follow-up question, he turns his attention to the drunk Israelites who were making merry in front of the golden calf.

And Moshe saw that the people had lost control—because Aharon had let them lose control … Then Moshe stood in the gate of the camp and said: “Whoever is for Y-H-V-H, to me!” And all the sons of Levi gathered to him. (Exodus 32:25-26)

Moshe orders the Levite men to go through the camp killing all the idol-worshippers. Then God sends a plague to kill any who were overlooked.4

But neither Moshe nor God punishes Aharon.

Moshe hikes up to top of Mount Sinai for another forty days, then returns to the camp with God’s pardon and a second pair of stone tablets. At that point he announces God’s plans for the revised religion. The people enthusiastically donate materials and labor to make a new portable sanctuary and altar, and new vestments for the priests. Aharon is still slated to be the first high priest, and his sons are still slated to serve as his assistants.

Shemini: memories of the golden calf

In this week’s Torah portion, Shemini (“Eighth”), Aharon and his sons have completed seven days of sitting at the entrance of the new sanctuary, also called the Tent of Meeting. Their ordination as the only priests of the revised religion is almost finished.

And it was on the eighth day, Moshe called to Aharon, to his sons, and to the elders of Israel. (Leviticus 9:1)

Until now, Moshe has been offering the animal sacrifices to God. This will be Aharon’s first day to make offerings on the altar himself.

And he said to Aharon: “Take yourself an eigel, a son of the herd [male two-year-old], as a chatat, and an unblemished ram as a rising-offering, and bring them near in front of God.” (Leviticus 9:2)

chatat (חַטָּאת) = an offering to expiate guilt or atone for sin. (From the noun chatah.)

Later in the book of Leviticus, in the portion Acharei Mot, Aharon is instructed to offer a par, (פַּר = adult bull) annually on Yom Kippur, as a guilt offering for himself and his sons—just in case they remain guilty of any transgressions committed during the past year.5

R.S. Hirsch explained that Aharon’s first guilt offering is a two-year-old male calf because “It is fitting that the priest who is about to serve in the Sanctuary should represent himself with such an offering. Later, however, when he has already assumed the office … he represents himself as a par.”6

(The standard practice was that whoever brought a guilt offering to the altar would lay his hands on its head before it was slaughtered, thus indicating his identity with the animal and symbolically offering himself to God. Aharon must identify with a calf for his first guilt offering, and with a grown bull from then on.)

But the main line of commentary, from Sifra (ca. 300 C.E.) to Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg (2022)7 deduces that Aharon has not yet cleared his guilt for making the golden eigel that people used as an idol, so now he must make atonement with a live eigel.

Then, as the high priest, Aharon can effect atonement for the Israelites who worshiped the golden calf.

Shemini: still afraid

Moshe tells Aharon when it is time to slaughter his own bull-calf as a guilt offering, along with his own ram as a rising-offering, and a hairy goat as a guilt offering for all the Israelites, along with other animal offerings and a grain offering. He concludes:

“… today, Y-H-V-H will appear to you!” (Leviticus 9:4)

Moshe repeats that promise to the whole assembly of Israelites, who have been fashioning all the pieces of the new sanctuary and the priests’ vestments for months, perhaps even a full year. This is the critical moment when they all will find out whether their work has been in vain.

Moshe tells his brother to come close to the new copper altar. The next verse says merely:

And Aharon came close to the altar, and he slaughtered the eigel for the chatat that was his. (Leviticus 9:8)

But according to the commentary, he is afraid to approach the altar. Ramban wrote: “Some Rabbis say that Aaron saw the [horned] altar in the form of the bull, and he was frightened by it.”8

Copper altar

Altars throughout the Levant were square boxes with protrusions shaped like horns at the four top corners. And every calf, even if it were only one year old, would have horns.

Ramban explained: “The reason for this [apparition which Aaron saw in the altar] was that since Aaron was the holy one of the Eternal, having no sin on his soul except for the incident of the golden calf, therefore that sin was firmly fixed in his mind … It thus appeared to him as if the form of the calf was there [in the altar] preventing his [attaining] atonement.”9

Or, as Rabbi David Kasher put it in the 21st century: “You see, it wasn’t just the altar. Aaron saw bulls everywhere. They haunted him. Bulls, and cows, and calfs—bovine beasts of every shape and size—their horns pointed at him, their hooves marching towards him. They were coming to collect punishment for his great sin. … Aaron stands there and wonders how he will ever be able to do this job. How can he atone for others when he himself is so full of sin? And Moses tells him, you are right, my brother. You will only become the High Priest for these people once you have worked through your own issues. You must find peace inside yourself before you can find it for anyone else. So first offer your sacrifices, first atone for yourself.”10

Then the sons of Aharon brought the blood to him, and he dipped his finger into the blood, and he put it on horns of the altar, and he poured the [remaining] blood on the foundation of the altar. (Leviticus 9:9)

Aharon is back on track. He continues performing the tasks of a high priest until all the animals have been slaughtered and burned according to regulations, and their blood distributed appropriately.

Then Aharon raised his hand toward the people, and he blessed them. And he came down from making the chatat, the rising-offering, and the wholeness-offering. Then Moshe and Aharon entered the Tent of Meeting, and they came out and they blessed the people. And the glory of Y-H-V-H appeared to the entire people—and fire went out from in front of Y-H-V-H, and it consumed the rising-offering and the fat parts on the altar. And all the people saw, and they sang out joyfully, and they threw themselves down on their faces. (Leviticus 9:22-24)

What would it be like to believe you had done something so terrible you could never be forgiven?

What would it be like to see a miraculous fire rush out from the Holy of Holies to pardon you?

What would it be like to be Aharon?

  1. Exodus 4:10-13. See my post Shemot: Moses Gives Up.
  2. Vayikra Rabbah, midrash (an imaginative form of commentary) composed ca. 500 C.E.
  3. E.g. Or HaChayim, 18th century C.E.
  4. Exodus 32:35.
  5. Leviticus 16:6, 16:11-14.
  6. 19th century Rabbi Raphael Samson Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash: Sefer Vayikra, Part 1, English translation by Daniel Haberman, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, 2002, p. 278.
  7. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Hidden Order of Intimacy, Schocken Books, New York, 2022 p. 61. See also Midrash Tanchuma, 6th-8th centuries C.E.; Rashi, 11th century; Da-at Zekinim, 12th-13th centuries; Rabbeinu Bachya ben Asher, 14th century; and Or HaChayim by Chayim ibn Attar, 18th century.
  8. Ramban is the acronym of 13th-century Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, a.k.a. Nachmanides. Translation in www.sefaria.org.
  9. Ramban, ibid.
  10. David Kasher, ParshaNut, Shemini: “Come Close”.

Pesach: A History

The Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, and their God brought them out to freedom and led them to a new home in the land of Canaan. This is the plot summary of the books of Exodus and Numbers, the theme of the spring holiday of Passover, and the foundational story of the Jewish people.

No other population in the Ancient Near East had a foundational story with themes of enslavement, liberation, or emigration.

Pesach (פֶּסַח), “Passover” in English, begins this Wednesday. Even Jews who never set foot inside a synagogue will gather for a seder (סֵדֶר = order) one or more evenings during the seven or eight days of the holiday.1

Observance in Exodus

Painting the blood, History Bible, Paris,1390

The holiday of Pesach is rooted in the Torah portion Bo in the book of Exodus (Exodus 10:1-13:6). It is spring when God is just about to afflict Egypt with the tenth and final plague: the death of firstborn sons, even the pharaoh’s. But God will spare the firstborn sons of the Israelites, as long as they follow instructions. Every Israelite household must slaughter a one-year-old lamb or goat on the 14th day of the month. They must catch its blood in a basin, dip a branch of oregano in it,2 and daub blood on the frame around their door: the two doorposts and the lintel. Because, God explains:

“And the blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are. I will see the blood, ufasachti you, and there will not be a blow of destruction for you, when I strike in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 12:13)

ufasachti (וּפָסַחְתִּי) = and I will skip. (A form of the verb pasach, פָּסַח = skip, hop, limp. This is also the source of the name of the festival, Pesach.)

The Israelites must roast the lamb and eat it inside their house on the fateful night, along with matzah and bitter herbs. And they must eat quickly, standing up, with their robes hiked up and girded, their sandals on their feet, and their staffs in their hands.3 Not an easy task!

Then God decrees that every spring from then on, the Israelites must celebrate the holiday of Pesach, Skipover (“Passover” in the King James translation), by remembering the exodus from Egypt, eating matzah, and not eating leaven for seven days.4

Only later does the Exodus story say that as their firstborn sons died, the Egyptians panicked and urged the Israelites to leave the country at once.

The people picked up their dough before it could become chameitz, their kneading-troughs wrapped up in their cloaks upon their shoulders. … And they baked the dough that they had taken from Egypt in rounds of matzot, for it was not chameitz because they were banished from Egypt and they could not delay, and they had not even prepared provisions for themselves. (Exodus 12:34, 39)

matzot (מַצּוֹת) = plural of matzah; unleavened flatbread.

chameitz (חָמֵץ) = leavened bread, leavened food.

This is a post-hoc explanation of what God had already decreed. (See my post Pesach: Being Unleavened, Part 2.) Why does God call for seven days of matzah in the first place?

Modern scholars suspect that three thousand years ago, before the book of Exodus was written, farmers in Canaan celebrated Chag HaMatzot, the festival of unleavened flatbread. Their barley was ripe and their wheat was ripening. So they threw out their old bread and sourdough starter, and ate matzah made with fresh flour from new grain.

So anyone in Canaan who felt attached to the original, ancient matzah festival got to keep on doing it.

Observance at the first temple

In the book of Deuteronomy, God says that all the Israelites have to slaughter their Pesach lambs at one place: the temple in Jerusalem.5

You must slaughter a pesach for God, your God, [from] flock and herd, in the place where God chooses to settle [God’s] name. You must not eat it with chameitz … (Deuteronomy 16:2-3)

In the long list of laws that God gives Moshe (“Moses” in English) at Mount Sinai is the requirement for a seven-day spring pilgrimage-festival called Chag HaMatzot. When God says: “And they will not appear before me empty-handed.” (Exodus 23:14), the implication is that people will bring offerings to an altar at a central location

Numbers 28:16-25 specifies extra offerings to be burned during the seven days of Pesach, but does not say where they should be burned. Apparently observance of Pesach at the temple in Jerusalem was neglected until the reign of King Yoshiyahu (“Josiah” in English) in the 7th century B.C.E.

Only in the eighteenth year of King Yoshiyahu was this Pesach done for God in Jerusalem. (2 Kings 23:23)

Observance at the second temple

We do not know the details of the Pesach observance at the first temple. But we do know how Pesach was observed in Jerusalem during the second temple period, thanks to the Mishnah Pesachim, a collection of Pesach laws and rabbinic discussions of those laws written by Yehudah HaNasi about a hundred years after the fall of the second temple in 70 C.E.

Levites singing, by James Tissot, ca. 1900

Pesach was one of three pilgrimage festivals, when groups of people came to Jerusalem to make offerings at the temple and celebrate. A group consisted of family members, their slaves if any, and sometimes their friends. For Pesach, the spring pilgrimage festival, they came with lambs or money to buy lambs (or goat kids). The head of each household (or his delegate) brought the animal to the temple courtyard to be slaughtered after the usual afternoon offerings to God were completed. Priests collected the blood of the Pesach lambs or kids in gold and silver basins, and sprinkled it on the altar. Then the people flayed their own animals, hanging them on hooks fixed in the walls. They removed the fatty parts, as in a normal shelamim or wholeness offering, and gave them to priests, who burned them on the altar to make smoke for God. Meanwhile, Levites sang the prescribed psalms.6

The men then brought the sanctified carcasses to their homes (if they lived in Jerusalem), or to the buildings in Jerusalem where they had rented rooms or parts of large halls (if they had come from out of town). As darkness fell, each one roasted his carcass whole, on a spit in an oven inside the building.7 Then his group (including slaves) feasted on the roasted meat with matzah and bitter herbs, as in the book of Exodus.

They also drank wine diluted with hot water.8 But they probably did not stand upright while eating, as God instructs the Israelites to do on their last night in Egypt. The Mishnah Pesachim notes that only the first Pesach required daubing blood on doorframes or eating in haste.9 We do not know whether the Israelites during the time of the second temple sat or reclined as they ate.

Home observance in the mishnah

The tenth and final chapter of Mishnah Pesachim describes how to observe Pesach at home, in a ritual resembling a symposium held in an upper-class Roman home. In a symposium, the host and guests lay on their left sides on couches, propped up on their left elbows, while servants waited on them. As they ate and drank, they followed a traditional format for discussing a topic chosen by the host.

Jews observing Pesach always had the same discussion topic, the liberation of the Israelites in the Torah portion Bo in Exodus. For them, certain foods (such as matzah and bitter herbs) were required, and others (any grain product with leaven were forbidden. Few Jews had servants waiting on them, but if they did, their servants ate and drank the same things they did.

Before the Pesach ritual began, Jews were required to search their homes for chameitz by the light of an oil lamp (or candle) and eliminate it before sundown—by eating it, feeding it to animals, selling it to a non-Jew, or burning it.10

Eating roasted meat became optional, since the meat was no longer sanctified at the temple.11 Both the search for chameitz and the option to avoid meat remain today. Many of the other rules for the home Pesach ritual in chapter 10 of Mishnah Pesachim are also observed to this day:

Chazeret, now usually Romaine
  • Reclining on one’s left side, like free and wealthy Romans—except that today we sit in a chair and lean to the left at certain points in the seder, or lean back on a cushion.
  • Eating chazeret, matzah, and charoset (a mixture made of fruit and wine). (In the Mishnah, the chazeret or bitter lettuce is dipped in something and eaten first. In today’s Pesach seder, any spring vegetable, called karpas, is dipped in salt water and eaten first. , matzah, and charoset (a mixture made of fruit and wine). (In the Mishnah, the chazeret or bitter lettuce is dipped in something and eaten first. In today’s Pesach seder, any spring vegetable, called karpas, is dipped in salt water and eaten first. Lettuce is still made available, to be used as the karpas or as a bitter herb.)
  • Drinking four cups of wine.
  • Reciting or singing the blessing for the holiday with the blessing for the first cup.
  • A son asking his father, after the second cup is poured, why this night is different from all other nights. (The Mishnah gives the father three prompts if the son does not come up with his own questions: why we dip twice, why we eat only matzah, and why we eat only meat roasted in fire. Today four questions are prescribed for the youngest child: why we eat only matzah, why we eat bitter herbs, why we dip our vegetables twice, and why we recline.)
  • Telling the story of the exodus from Egypt, starting with “An Aramean …” (See my post Ki Tavo: A Perishing Aramean on this ambiguous verse, Deuteronomy 26:5.)
  • Quoting Rabbi Gamliel: “Whoever does not make mention of these three things on Pesach does not fulfill his duty. And these are they: the pesach, matzah, and bitter herbs. The pesach because God passed over the houses of our fathers in Egypt. The matzah because our fathers were redeemed from Egypt. The bitter herb because the Egyptians embittered the lives of our fathers in Egypt. In every generation a man is obligated to regard himself as though he personally had gone forth from Egypt, because it is said, “And you shall tell your son on that day, saying: ‘It is because of that which the Lord did for me when I came forth out of Egypt”12
  • Reciting or singing the psalms of the Haleil that were once sung by Levites at the temple for joyful holidays.
  • Reciting or singing the blessings after the meal with the third cup of wine.

Additional observances from the first millennium

Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, a midrash on the book of Exodus compiled around 200 C.E., claims there are four types of sons in the story of the exodus from Egypt —the wise son, the wicked son, the simple son, and the son who does not know how to ask. This midrash also prescribes what the father should say to each type of son. To this day, every haggadah (הַגָּדָה = telling: a script with instructions, sayings, and prayers for all the steps of the Pesach seder) includes a version of that midrash.

The books of mishnah led to later rabbinic discussions called the gemara, which were recorded in abbreviated form by around 500 C.E.. The mishnah and gemara together make the complete Talmud, in two versions: Talmud Bavli and Talmud Yerushalmi.13 The gemara in the Talmud Bavli tractate Pesachim includes a few more elements that are found today in every Pesach seder:

  • Washing hands twice: once before dipping and eating the karpas, and once before dipping and eating the bitter herbs. (Pesachim 115a-b)
  • Reciting Deuteronomy 16:3 about the bread of affliction or poverty. (Pesachim 115b)
  • Repeating Rabbi Yochanan’s statement that we eat charoset in remembrance of the mortar used by the Jews for their forced labor in Egypt. (Pesachim 116a)
  • Lifting the matzah and the bitter herbs when quoting Rabbi Gamliel. (Pesachim 116b)
  • Eating a bit of matzah last, after dessert. (Pesachim 119b-120a)

The gemara in the Talmud Yerushalmi tractate Pesachim 10:1 explains the four cups of wine as corresponding to God’s four promises of redemption in Exodus 6:6-7: “… I will bring you out … I will rescue you … I will redeem you … I will take you …” This explanation is also a standard part of today’s Pesach seder.  

But there is a fifth promise of redemption in Exodus 6:8: “And I will bring you into the land …”

Some medieval rabbis connected this with the mention of a fifth cup of wine in the gemara in the Talmud Bavli, Pesachim 118a, arguing that it was not a scribal error, but an indication that a fifth cup should be poured, but not necessarily drunk, since the redemption of the Jews is not yet complete. The fifth cup became known as the cup of Eliyahu (“Elijah” in English), because of the legend that someday that prophet will return to resolve all disputes and to usher in the messiah or messianic age. At our seders today, we always pour a cup of wine for Eliyahu —and open the door briefly in case he shows up.

Additional observances from the second millennium

Two plagues illustrated in the Rylands Haggadah, 17th century Spain

The ten plagues inflicted upon Egypt are naturally part of the story told after the second cup of wine is poured. The custom of removing one drop of wine from the cup for each plague was first mentioned in a Pesach sermon by Rabbi Eleazer of Worms (1176-1238). But it was Rabbi Yirmiyahu Löw (1812-1874) who wrote that we do it in sympathy for the Egyptians, a sentiment found in many a haggadah today.

The first haggadah in the modern sense of a script for every step in the seder, with midrash, may have been the one Rabbi Amram Gaon wrote around 850 C.E.. But thousands of haggadot have been written since then, adding new elements and omitting others. The process continues in the 21st century. This year, for example, some Jews are planning to add an olive to the seder plate exhibited before the ritual begins, to express hope for peace and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.

The celebration of Pesach has gradually changed over three millennia, but every haggadah includes the statement Avadim hayinu: “We were slaves”. Because the underlying purpose of Pesach is to teach the importance of liberation from slavery and oppression. We have needed that message for thousands of years, and we still need it now.

  1. Pesach lasts seven days in Exodus 12:15-20 and to this day in Israel, but some communities outside Israel celebrate it for eight days.
  2. See my post Pesach, Metzora, & Chukat: Blood and Oregano.
  3. Exodus 12:11.
  4. Exodus 12:14-20.
  5. See my post Re-eih & Isaiah: Only in Jerusalem.
  6. Mishnah Pesachim, chapter 5.
  7. Mishnah Pesachim, chapter 7.
  8. Ibid.
  9. Mishnah Pesachim, chapter 9.
  10. Mishnah Pesachim, chapters 1 and 2.
  11. Mishnah Pesachim, chapter 4.
  12. Exodus 13:8.
  13. Talmud Bavli is the version recorded by rabbis living in Babylon, the city called Bavel in Hebrew. Talmud Yerushalmi is the version recorded during the same period by the rabbis living in Palestine, especially in Jerusalem, the city called Yerushalayim in Hebrew.

Tzav: Horns, Ears, Thumbs, Toes

Building an altar, lighting a fire, and offering an animal or some grain to God is an act of worship that any man can perform in the book of Genesis. But after the first such offerings, by Kayin (“Cain” in English) and Hevel (“Abel”), the honors go to the man who is the head of household. In the book of Exodus, Moshe (“Moses” in English) does the offering, except when Moshe’s father-in-law Yitro visits.1

But God gives Moshe instructions for a different approach to worship when Moshe spends his first forty-day stint on top of Mount Sinai.2 Instead of building a stone altar just anywhere, offerings must all be made at a single communal altar, which will be made of acacia wood overlaid with copper (or a copper alloy). This altar will be transported to each new campsite to be used again.

It will stand in the courtyard in front of the mishkan (מִשְׁכָּן = dwelling-place), a holy structure that will be reassembled at each campsite. The back chamber of the mishkan, the Holy of Holies, is where God will dwell above the ark. The front chamber is where priests wearing special vestments will light the menorah, lay out bread on the table, and burn incense. Furthermore, every offering at the altar will require the presence of at least one ordained priest.

In this week’s Torah portion of Leviticus, Tzav (Leviticus/Vayikra 6:1-8:36), Moshe carries out God’s instructions for ordaining the first priests, and simultaneously inaugurates the mishkan and the new altar. He uses the same two liquids: anointing oil (pure olive oil with fragrant spices mixed in), and blood. (See my post Tzav: Oil and Blood.)

Anointing oil

The ceremony in this week’s Torah portion takes place near the altar in front of the curtained entrance of the mishkan. Moshe assembles everything needed for the ceremony, including a bull, two rams, and the special anointing oil. He summons the elders into the courtyard as witnesses. Then he washes and dresses the first five priests: his brother Aharon (“Aaron” in English) and Aharon’s four sons. He interrupts the dressing process to anoint the mishkan and every item inside it with the oil, and he also spatters oil on the copper altar, its tools, and its base. Only then does Moshe pour anointing oil over Aharon, who will be the first high priest.3

Anointing blood

Since Aharon and his sons are not yet officially priests, Moshe slaughters the animals for the rest of the ceremony. First comes the bull for the guilt-offering (chatat, חַטָּאת). The purpose of this offering is to purify the altar in case anything unauthorized happened to it between the time it was made and the day of its inauguration, and to purify the new priests in case they have inadvertently failed to follow one of God’s many rules. The general principle in the book of Leviticus is that one cannot be too careful when dealing with God.

Then he brought forward the bull of the guilt-offering, and Aharon and his sons leaned their hands on the head of the bull of the guilt-offering. (Leviticus 8:14)

By leaning (or laying) their hands on the head of the bull, the five new priests magically or symbolically transfer some of their spirit or identity to the bull, so that when the bull is offered to God, they are offering part of themselves to God.

Then he slaughtered it. And Moshe took the blood and put it on the karnot of the altar, all around, with his finger. Thus he removed guilt from the altar. And he poured the blood at the foundation of the altar. Thus he made it holy, for making atonement upon it [through future offerings]. (Leviticus 8:15)

karnot (קַרְנוֹת) = horns, rays of light. (Plural of keren, קֶרֶן = horn of an animal; animal horn used to hold oil; ray of light; a symbol of strength and power.

Stone model of altar, Megiddo, 9th century

Horns were a common feature of altars in the Ancient Near East. The altar fashioned at Mount Sinai is a box, five cubits (about 3 ½ feet) square, with a grating to hold animal parts over a fire. Its horns (also copper) protrude from each of the four corners at the top.

Moshe burns all the fatty parts of the bull on the newly-purified altar to make smoke for God. Then the five future priests lean their hands on one of the rams, the one for the standard rising-offering (olah, עֺלָה), which Moshe completely burns up after splashing its blood against the four sides of the altar.

Then he brought forward the second ram, the ram of the miluim. And Aharon and his sons leaned their hands on the head of the ram. (Leviticus 8:22)

miluim (מִלֱֻאִים) = filling up; inserting something in its setting; consecration or ordination. (From the root verb malei, מָלֵא = fill, fulfill.)

And Moshe slaughtered it. And he took some of its blood and put it on the rim of Aharon’s right ear, the thumb of his right hand, and the thumb of his right foot [i.e. his right big toe].  Then he brought near the sons of Aharon, and Moshe put some of the blood on the rims of their right ears, the thumbs of their right hands, and the thumbs of their right feet.  Then he dashed [the rest of] the blood on the altar, all around.  (Leviticus 8:22-24)

After the offering that includes the second ram is completed,

Then Moshe took some of the anointing oil and some of the blood that was on the altar, and he sprinkled [them] on Aharon, on Aharon’s garments, on his sons, and on his sons’ garments with him. Thus he made holy Aharon, Aharon’s garments, his sons, and his sons’ garments with him.   (Leviticus 8:30)

After that, the new priests must stay at the entrance of the mishkan for seven days to complete their ordination.

Extremities

Moshe consecrates everything in the mishkan, then the altar and its tools, and the high priest with the same anointing oil. But the distribution of blood is more elaborate. The altar gets bull’s blood on the horns at its four corners, then at its foundation or footing. The men get ram’s blood on their right ears, right thumbs, and right big toes.

According to Plaut, “The original intent was probably one of ritual purification; and the extremities served as a kind of summary for the entire body … ‘from top to toe.’”4

On this theory, applying blood to the altar’s top extremities (its horns) and its bottom foundation symbolically purifies the entire altar, too.

But human beings have lots of extremities. Why does the Torah specify the ear, thumb, and big toe—especially the thumb, which is halfway between a human’s head and foot?

In the first century C.E., Philo of Alexandria explained it in terms of purity: “In this figure, he indicated that the fully consecrated must be pure in words and actions and in his whole life; for words are judged by hearing, the hand is the symbol of action, and the foot of the pilgrimage of life.”5

In the 19th century, Hirsch wrote about it as a challenge for the priest: “The ear (hearing and understanding), the hand (creative work), the foot (striving to advance)—those are the primary areas in which a personality invested with the honor of leading the community, like a ram at the head of the flock, must prove itself.”6

And in the 20th century, Hertz put it in terms of God: “The ear was touched with blood, that it may be consecrated to hear the word of God; the hand, to perform the duties of the priesthood; and the foot, to walk in the path of righteousness.”7

The four horns of the copper altar are in fact its highest extremities, but they are also symbolic. Since they are shaped like animal horns, they are a reminder of the horns of the cattle, sheep, and goats sacrificed there.  But the horns also might stand for the altar’s connection with the divine, evoking the idea of powerful rays of light pointing up toward the heavens—or down toward the altar.

Moses also pours the blood of purification on the foundation, or footing, of the altar.  Both the priests and the altar must be pure where they reach toward heaven, and also where they have their feet (indicated by the big toe) on the ground.  Only then can they be holy intermediaries between God and the people.

The method for consecrating priests described in the portion Tzav has not been used for almost two thousand years. But people still look for human intermediaries to help them connect to the ineffable, whether they are officially ordained priests, pastors, imams, rabbis, and so forth, or informal spiritual teachers who seem to (and may actually) know more than the average person. The responsibility of religious leadership can be unnerving, at least for those with enough humility to deserve the job. Actually, any position of authority and influence over others is a heavy duty.

May all leaders develop the habits of listening before speaking, of offering an open hand without grasping, and of walking slowly enough to make course corrections.

  1. Exodus 18:12
  2. Exodus 25:1-31:18.
  3. Leviticus 8:10-12.
  4. Bernard Bamberger, in The Torah: A Modern Commentary, ed. by W Gunther Plaut, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, New York, 1981, p. 797.
  5. Philo of Alexandria, circa 20 BCE – c.  50 CE, On the Life of Moses, II:150, quoted in Plaut, ibid.
  6. Samson Raphael Hirsch, 19th century, The Hirsch Chumash: Sefer Shemos, translated by Daniel Haberman, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem & New York, 2002, p.689.
  7. J.H. Hertz, ed., The Pentateuch and Haftarahs, Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1936, quoted in Plaut, ibid.
  8. E.g. 1 Samuel 2:10, Jeremiah 48:25, Psalm 75:5, Psalm 89:18.

(An earlier version of this essay was published in 2010.)